
Gopyiight N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Seatjj's ^etragogtcal ILtfrrarg — 37 



READING 



A MANUAL FOR TEACHERS 



BY 



/ 



MARY E. LAING 



FORMERLY TEACHER OF PSYCHOLOGY AND GENERAL PEDAGOGY 
IN THE OSWEGO NORMAL AND TRAINING SCHOOL 



>^oo 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1901 

u 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

APR. 25 1901 

COPVR»«HT ENTRY 

CLASS °^ XXc. N«. 

8o5o 

COPY 8. 



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Copyright, 1901, 
By D. C. Heath & Co. 



PREFACE. 

So rapid has been the progress in Psychology in the 
last years, so earnest and all-sided the study of teach- 
ing problems, so suggestive the work of Child Study, 
that much new light has been thrown on the method 
of presenting the various studies in the school curricu- 
lum. Added to this there has been an increased desire 
on the part of teachers themselves to escape from the 
deadening effects of mere routine work and to become 
intelligent students of the problems that confront them 
in their class-rooms. The language of Psychology is 
no longer strange to such teachers, since it has pene- 
trated much of the best pedagogical literature ; the 
idea of simple, everyday observation in their own class- 
room laboratories has grown familiar. 

Under these circumstances there is a demand for a 
more serious and thorough discussion of popular edu- 
cational questions. Teachers no longer desire to be 
merely told how to teach a subject, but they choose 
rather that sound principles of procedure be developed 
which shall suggest varied and extended application 

which they are themselves quite able to make. 

iii 



IV PREFACE. 

The reading problem is an unusually complex one. 
Students of Psychology know that it is by no means 
solved. But so much new light has been thrown on 
this most obscure subject that dull and difficult ways 
in Reading have become illumined. 

This book aims to bring together, in a concise form, 
some of the most valuable and suggestive contribu- 
tions of later educational thought to the teaching of 
Reading. It discusses the Psychology underlying the 
Reading process, and illustrates the discussions with 
examples drawn from practical teaching work. The 
Appendix has been prepared with the object of afford- 
ing material for the use of teachers' classes. 

The book is written for pupil teachers, whether they 
be in city training schools, normal schools, or in their 
own school-rooms, where they are, perhaps, trying to 
solve the problems of education single-handed. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Learning to Speak 1 

II. Relation of Form and Content .... 4 

III. Material for Early Reading Lessons ... 7 

IV. Treatment of Material 14 

V. Analysis of Lessons 21 

VI. Apperception and Reading . . . . . 26 

VII. Correlation of Reading with Other Studies . . 34 

VIII. Method in Reading 40 

IX. Beginning to Read 48 

X. The Reading Process 57 

XI. Principles in Application 66 

XII. " Reading Together " 72 

XIII. Getting the Central Thought 77 

XIV. Intensive and Extensive Reading .... 86 
XV. The Picture and its Use 93 

XVI. The Child and the Book 101 

XVII. The Reading Habit 110 

XVHT. The Teacher's Preparation 118 

v 



VI 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Appendix : 

I. Life of a Bean 

II. (A) The Sweet Broth. Grimm . 

(B) The Star Dollars. Grimm 

(C) Little Red Riding Hood. Grimm 

(D) The Anxious Leaf . 

(E) Clytie, the Sunflower 

(F) Raggylug. Thompson 

( G) Supposed Speech of John Adams 

III. Herve Riel. Robert Browning 

IV. Study of Macbeth .... 



PAGE 

125 
138 
139 
140 
144 
146 
147 
148 
153 
160 



MANUAL OF READING. 

CHAPTER I. 

LEAKNING TO SPEAK. 

What is involved in learning to read ? 

Perhaps we can understand better how to answer 
this very complex question if we ask ourselves what 
processes are involved in learning to speak. 

When children come to our primary schools they 
command a spoken language. If you attempt to trace 
the process by which they have gained a command of 
this spoken language, you find it something like 
this : — 

As babies they have heard spoken words ; i.e. certain 
auditory sensations were obtained from spoken words, 
over which the active child-mind busied itself so that 
perceptions of spoken words were gained. These were 
auditory perceptions. 

Did you ever watch a mother with her child ? First, 
words and songs are simplified, then they are crooned, 
and sung, and whispered to the child again and again, 
and always with animation and pleasure. Each little 
word and sentence is brimful of talk that says what 
can be said only to a little child, and none of us have 
studied life far enough to think with any clearness 
what it means to him. 

1 



2 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

If the mother show a ball or flower or doll to her 
child, the name is uttered while the object is being dis- 
played. In this way the auditory perception of the 
word comes just when the child-mind is busied over 
the visual image of the object. Now the child is form- 
ing perceptions of these objects, and by and by the 
perceptions of the spoken words are associated with 
the objects that they represent. 

This association of the word and the idea is the begin- 
ning of learning to understand, of learning to speak, of 
learning to read. This association of the word with 
the object or idea which it names, the simple beginnings 
of which we have traced, goes on continuously in the 
child's life, and teachers take up a little later what the 
mother has begun. 

Now a new stage of development is reached in the 
child's life ; the word recalls the idea, and the object 
or idea, the word. When the child begins to speak, 
his words stand for ideas. When he comes to the first 
primary room, he speaks intelligently, because his vo- 
cabulary represents his store of concepts, and he speaks 
for the purpose of saying something. 

He already possesses an oral language sufficient for 
his present needs. He comes to the school to be taught 
a written language, and the primary teacher who would 
help him to this written language in the reading lesson 
must follow nature's method if she would be a success- 
ful teacher. She must grow into an intelligent sym- 
pathy with the child that will enable her to establish 
something like real intercourse with him. The written 
word must come with a real message for his mind and 
heart. It must have repetitions endless, but with 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 3 

infinite variety ; it must be full of interest for him ; 
hence it must always be associated with the concept, 
i.e. it must from the beginning be a means of expression. 
Let us recapitulate here. The' child's spoken lan- 
guage is gained : — 

(1) By forming concepts of objects. 

(2) By forming auditory images of words. 

(3) By associating the concept with its appropriate 

word. 

Mastery of this spoken language is attained by con- 
stant repetition under the stimulus of interest. 
The written language must be obtained — 

(1) By forming visual perceptions of words. 

(2) By associating the written word and the idea. 

This written language can be mastered only by faith- 
ful repetitions under the stimulus of interest. 



CHAPTER II. 

RELATION OF FORM AND CONTENT. 

The mother gives to the child those objects that will 
appeal to him. She learns by observation the things 
over which he will most readily busy himself. She 
assists him to those activities which will arouse and 
develop his physical and psychical nature. She stimu- 
lates these activities by her own sympathetic interest. 
The child pursues with great persistence and pleasure 
those things which give an opportunity for free self- 
expression. The spontaneous attention which he gives 
under these conditions of free- activity is the condition 
under which his clearest ideas are formed. Healthful 
response, in the form of activity, both receptive and 
expressive, is what the mother has secured. She has 
awakened his interest in the objects and activities 
toward which his own development inclines him. 
Without such interest his attention would be fitful 
and evanescent. 

The presentation of subjects to which our children 
will respond and their presentation in the most fortu- 
nate way form two most important aspects of lesson 
work. For this self-active response is interest, the 
condition of spontaneous attention, without which edu- 
cation is a sorry matter for both teacher and child. 

The perceptive activity of the child does not lend 
itself readily to the form of either spoken or written 

4 



RELATION OF FORM AND CONTENT. 5 

language. If the child listens with attention, the 
spoken words must say something to him ; if he looks 
attentively, the written words must recall ideas that 
are interesting to him. His interest centres in the con- 
tent. He masters the language forms because of their 
essential relation to content. Interest in content, when 
it is fairly sustained, is the efficient means in the mastery 
of language forms. 

The first condition of teaching anything well is the 
securing of sustained interest with the accompanying 
habits of attention. The vocabulary of words that the 
child must master before he can read are forms. They 
must then be associated with a content that will interest 
the child. 

The observation of children shows that they are in- 
terested in humanity and in nature, especially in those 
aspects of nature that appeal to them as life. The 
human interest develops first and is most constant and 
persistent. Child study thus far suggests that children 
are most interested in children. The child's home is 
his little world, the only world he has ever explored. 
From his home his interest leads him out to the world 
of living animals and plants and the larger world of 
living, acting men. 

He must enter these worlds as a child, — observe 
them with a child's eyes, respond to them in a child's 
way. It is noteworthy that the books which have ap- 
pealed most strongly to children are books that have 
children in them. This is partly due, no doubt, to the 
child's interest in the child and partly to the fact that 
a book which has a child for its centre is more likely to 
carry with it settings that will interest the child. They 



6 MANUAL OF READING. 

are books that give the child's point of view — Miss 
Andrew's book "The Seven Little Sisters," and Kip- 
ling's " Tomai of the Elephants " and " Mowgli " stories 
are excellent illustrations of this. 
Let us repeat : — 

(1) Clear perceptions are gained under a condition 

of concentration. 

(2) Concentration in its best form cannot be secured 

without the aid of interest. 

(3) Children's vital interest centres in content, never 

in the form of words. 

(4) Children are most interested — 

a. In humanity and its activities, especially in 

children. 

b. In nature, especially whatever in nature 

exhibits life and movement. 



CHAPTER III. 

MATERIAL FOR EARLY READING LESSONS. 

Material for early reading lessons may then be 
drawn from these two great sources — the humanity 
source and the nature source. If we can add the human 
interest to the nature interest, or vice versa, so much 
the better. We find such a relation in literature and in 
life. The average child cannot study geography under 
a teacher who knows and loves his subject, without 
learning to appreciate in some measure the intimate 
relation between man and his environment ; he will 
learn how surely man has grown strong in overcoming 
the difficulties of his environment. (See Quiquern 
in Kipling's Second. Jungle Book.) He cannot study 
history intelligently without learning how the story of 
whole peoples has been modified by their physical sur- 
roundings. All his science study will teach him the 
dependence of man on nature for supplies, as nature 
depends on him in turn for " dressing and keeping " ; 
it will lead him later to an appreciation of the impor- 
tant fact that some of humanity's greatest strides in 
civilization have resulted primarily from harnessing 
some great natural force. He cannot go far in liter- 
ature without finding evidences of the poet's love for 
nature — a love which in many respects is strikingly 
akin to the child's. 

The strong ethical influence of nature study enters 
into the work from two sides — first, from a realiza- 

7 



8 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

tion of the laws of life as they are exhibited in nature, 
or from the receptive side, and second from getting into 
a right relation with plants and animals, or from the 
active side. The child who studies the plants in such 
wise as to come into a vivid realization of the close 
interdependence of part on part, so that the whole 
appears to him as it really is, a system of intimately 
related parts, with each part contributing to all the rest 
of the plant and receiving something in return from 
the rest — this child has not only a more scientific con- 
ception of plant life, but he has a valuable type illus- 
tration which will help him to understand more complex 
organic relations as he finds them, whether exhibited in 
plant or animal form, in a continental structure or a 
social organization. The child who is taught to feel 
that the animal which has been removed from its envi- 
ronment for study must be honestly cared for, and its 
needs faithfully attended to, is not only acquiring a 
habit that will be likely to lead to more painstaking 
observation, but he is learning a rational and honorable 
guardianship of life, which is one of the important 
attributes of moral character. The child should destroy 
the fewest possible seedlings in studying them ; he 
should plant no seed without being taught to care for 
it. For nowhere do we touch life without incurring 
responsibility. To learn this would be invaluable to 
any child. Nature study should teach it. 

In choosing material for nature work we must be 
guided by three principles : — 

(1) The fundamental life relation which unites hu- 
manity to nature must be exhibited. 



MATERIAL FOR EARLY READING LESSONS. 9 

(2) Material must be chosen from grade to grade 

that will give an orderly sequence which will 
serve as a foundation for future science study. 

(3) The work must be adapted to the experiences 

of the class itself. 

The first condition has already been alluded to from 
the standpoint of interest. From the standpoint of a 
correct education it is all-important that the child 
should reach a true conception of fundamental life 
conditions. 

True ideas of nature naturally lead to right action 
toward objects of nature. In one of the large cities of 
the northwest the boys were wont to disturb the birds' 
nests and stone their occupants. In vain did the teach- 
ers remonstrate. A study of birds was begun a little 
later, and Longfellow's " Birds of Killingworth " was 
read. From that time the war against the birds ceased, 
without a word or suggestion from the teachers. 

Another condition which must govern the choice of 
material in all nature work is its adaptability to the 
particular needs of the children themselves. Young 
children should be given material that impresses them 
as having life. Growth and movement are the two 
attributes that appeal most strongly to children. From 
the plant world choose living, growing plants, and have 
the children care for them. From the animal world 
select animals that come close to their lives. Again, 
let types be chosen ; e.g. if, in a series of lessons where 
material is taken from the garden, a monocotyledonous 
plant is chosen for study in one grade, let a dicotyledo- 
nous plant follow. In material drawn from the zoo- 



10 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

logical field, if the grasshopper is studied in one grade, 
choose another type insect for subsequent study. In 
this way the child is laying an orderly foundation on 
which subsequent work can build. 

The very first lessons in reading may well be drawn 
from nature study, since these lessons lend themselves 
more readily to the child's limited vocabulary of written 
words, and give better opportunity for the foundation 
of clear sense images. 

As soon as possible material drawn from literature 
should be introduced. Stories from Folk-Lore, Fairy 
Tales, Rhymes, and Legends that have become chil- 
dren's classics should find their place in the reading 
hour. The range of this material widens so rapidly 
that, like Philip Gilbert Hamerton's good reader, the 
secret of successful choice is in knowing how to skip 
judiciously. 

The bridge to this class of material is most naturally 
made from the nature side, where a yearly sequence is 
followed, through the interest that develops in special 
holidays, or in poems relating to those objects in nature 
that form the subjects of study ; or the transition may 
begin through the study of Indians or Esquimaux, or in 
some other way. In the choice of material follow the 
child's growing interest. In this way a true literary 
taste is developed more surely, and the difficulties of 
mastering a written language more readily overcome. 

The child's environment must always modify the 
matter of his early reading lessons. The child in one 
of our larger cities or towns, who has had a limited 
experience with nature, should have many lessons drawn 
from the social world in which he lives. Meanwhile 



MATERIAL FOR EARLY READING LESSONS. 11 

no effort should be spared to let nature into the school- 
room. The street-car driver, the drayman, the milk- 
man, the stone-cutter, the mason, and builder — all the 
activities and industries about the child should be 
utilized as material for the reading lesson. This indus- 
trial side, with its life and movement, will interest the 
children. Back of the industrial side the child should 
be helped to a growing understanding of social life. 
He should think of these laborers, not only in their 
service to society in general, but in their service to 
their own homes in particular. 

No better starting-point could be made in the early 
language lessons than the industries of the children's 
own parents. Such work has the advantage of a vital 
relation to the child's own life, and presents valuable 
points of departure leading to wider fields in history 
and literature, in science and geography. When na- 
ture work is introduced after such a beginning, it 
should be approached from the social side. The homes 
of animals, their manner of obtaining food, their care 
of their young, etc., should be presented in such a way 
that the child's own social experiences will help him in 
their interpretation. But some real experience with 
plants and animals must precede any nature study 
whatever, and, as has been suggested, such experience 
should teach the children the care and protection of 
living things. 1 

1 The writer once saw a most valuable and suggestive exercise in 
the Practice School at Jena. The teacher of the beginning class, in- 
stead of starting at once with the full programme of work, reserved 
periods in the first days for ascertaining the experiences of the class, 
and the variety and accuracy of their ideas of everyday objects. 



12 MANUAL OF BEADING, 

All this suggests that the teacher should study the 
environment of her class, and that the results of such 
study should modify the early lessons in reading. Spe- 
cial care should be exercised that these early lessons 
show definite plan and continuity. The first primers 
and readers should be chosen with an idea of carrying 
forward these living beginnings. 

To recapitulate : — 

(1) Material for reading should be chosen from 

literature and nature study. 

(2) Nature and humanity are closely related. Ap- 

preciation of this relation contributes directly 
to interest, intelligence, and character. 

(3) Material chosen must be adapted to the child's 

stage of development. 

(4) Types should be chosen. 

(5) Procedure should develop an orderly sequence 

from grade to grade. 

The results showed that the children, although they represented the 
same social class and lived in the same neighborhood, varied widely in 
their sense knowledge. Apparently these differences arose from the 
habits of their respective families. The children who had shared the 
walks and excursions of their parents had an intelligent understanding 
of the world about them, and an accuracy of sense images not fre- 
quently shown by those children who had explored the region in a 
more accidental and haphazard way. 

It was noticeable that these children exhibited the liveliest interest 
in each other's experiences, and a natural and spontaneous interchange 
of thought grew apace. When the work was completed the teacher 
had formed a clear impression of the amount, variety, and accuracy 
of the sense images of his class, and the class themselves had come to 
feel at home in their new environment, and to know each other. A 
social life was established. 



MATERIAL FOR EARLY READING LESSONS. 13 

(6) Literary material should be taken from chil- 

dren's classics. 

(7) The earliest lessons should be modified by the 

child's environment. 

(8) Teachers should, at the beginning of the work, 

acquaint themselves with the children's stock 
of sense experiences. 



CHAPTER IV. 

TREATMENT OF MATERIAL (Science). 

The reading lesson should be closely related to the 
nature lesson which it should supplement rather than 
reproduce. Points of interest developed in nature 
study should be followed out in the reading hour. 
When this is not done, the children should have oppor- 
tunity in the reading lesson itself for the observation 
of objects about which they are to read. Such obser- 
vation is not reading, but it should provide the chil- 
dren with clear sense images, without which reading in 
the true sense is impossible. 

In the first grade early lessons should be written on 
the board in the presence of the class, the children and 
teacher making their own lessons. Such work should 
be continued in diminishing amount through the pri- 
mary grades. This method closely unites practice in 
writing and spelling with reading. 

If we ask what gives power and grasp in reading, we 
shall find that it comes from : — 

Power to concentrate. 
Power to understand the content. 
Power to make the content real and vivid. 
Power to grasp thought in its entirety. 
Power to subordinate in relation to the central 
thought, that is, to get true proportion. 
14 



TREATMENT OF MATERIAL. 15 

Power to read is indeed the first great condition in 
education and the primary end of early teaching. 

We must remember, with Froebel, that all great 
things have very simple beginnings, and that these 
beginnings largely determine the final outcome. If, 
then, this power and grasp in reading is to be present 
in our high schools, it must find a beginning in the 
lowest primary class. 

The board lesson is one of the surest means of mak- 
ing that fortunate beginning which will lead directly 
to a cultivation of the power that reading should de- 
velop. The reasons for this lie in the following facts : — 

The board lesson represents a thoroughly mastered 
content, so that words are taught in relation to 
ideas. 

The board lesson gives opportunity for the best pos- 
sible concentration of attention, hence for the more 
thorough and rapid mastery of language forms. 

The board lesson affords a natural transition to the 
printed slips that may also represent the work of 
teacher and class. Such a transition tends to make 
the child appreciate book-making. It makes the 
book a natural and familiar thing, and prepares him 
to use it with more interest and understanding. 

We have suggested that material drawn from the 
natural science field should be treated so as to give the 
beginning of a scientific training. This requires that 
children be led to exercise their perceptive activities 
over material, make thoughtful inferences, reason from 
cause to effect, and vice versa, and base all conclusions 
on known facts. It requires, too, that children express 



16 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

all observations and conclusions in simple, direct, truth- 
ful language. 

These requirements in method suggest the follow- 
ing order of work with material : — 

(1) Careful perceptive activity over that which is 

presented to the eye. 

(2) Careful interpretation of that which is observed. 

(3) Natural and accurate expression. 

The teacher, whose class is studying the young bean 
plant, should see that children observe accurately the 
size of the cotyledons at various stages. By means of 
comparison they reach the fact that the cotyledons are 
diminishing, shrinking up. Meanwhile, there is a re- 
lated set of facts which they are observing. The young 
plant is growing larger while the cotyledons are grow- 
ing smaller. They must look for the cause of this. 
With a few young bean plants developed in moist cot- 
ton, they will discover that the baby plant is using up 
material encased in the cotyledons, which are the bean 
plant's little storehouses. 

Always see that the child makes his own observa- 
tions and, as far as possible, his own inferences, guard- 
ing carefully against the pernicious habit of guessing. 

It is a mistake to think that all material must be 
brought into the schoolroom, though much of it should 
be brought there. When the children are studying the 
rabbit it will greatly enhance the value of the work if 
the animal can live in the schoolroom a few days, be- 
coming an object of regulated and natural care as well 
as an object of observation. Fishes, polywogs, cray- 
fish, etc., may be kept as long as is consistent with their 



TREATMENT OF MATERIAL. 17 

welfare, and should then faithfully be returned to their 
native haunts. In no other way can children make 
observations so accurately, and acquire so sure an inter- 
est in the habits and movements of the animal, and 
with the work their own respectful consideration for 
all life will constantly grow. 

It is a mistake, however, to confine all work to descrip- 
tion.. Field lessons should begin at once. Material for 
subsequent lessons should be gathered during excur- 
sions, and will naturally grow out of the points of 
greatest interest ; a e.g. the children who have observed 
their first dandelion with the teacher, and have left it 
to gladden other eyes, may still use this as material. 
The teacher helping the children to recall the chief 
points of interest and to give expression to them in 
the form of a reading lesson, secures something like the 
following : — 

Our First Dandelion. 

To-day we found our first dandelion. 

It was growing close to the sidewalk. 

There was green grass all around. 

It was in a sunny place. 

We think that the dandelion loves the sunshine. 

We did not pick the dandelion. 

Many people will see it. 

It will say to them, " Spring is here ! " 

X A kindergartner recently related this little incident. "Miss R. 
was walking with a little group of children when they discovered their 
first dandelion. The first impulse was to pick it, hut some one sug- 
gested that if it were left there, other people could see it. At that they 
all gathered round and worshipped it." This little incident right out 
of everyday child life suggests that "having" even in nature study, 
is not always best possession. 



18 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

Much of the success of the work will depend on the 
teacher's skill in directing the activity of the children 
both in seeing and saying. She will help the children 
to discover in their field walks the conditions under 
which the flower is growing, its habits will be observed 
while she will be careful to awaken no mere sentiment 
for the flower, but simply enter into the child's natural 
feelings for it. The teacher must direct the natural 
expression of the class, in the subsequent reading and 
language lesson by questions and suggestions ; e.g., 
Where did we find the dandelion growing ? (writing 
the children's answers on the board in u the story" 
which they are making together). Why did we think 
the dandelion liked this place ? Why did we decide to 
leave it ? What will it say to people ? etc. 

Remember that definiteness must characterize all work 
in directing the child's thoughts. He will lose all in- 
terest in seeing if he is left in doubt as to the direction 
that his activity is to take. 

It should be remembered here that much of the read- 
ing work drawn from nature study has failed because the 
reading lesson has been made a means of merely repeat- 
ing the nature lesson, or of pronouncing the written 
language lesson drawn from the nature work. The 
reading lesson should as a rule, hold something new for 
the child. The truths learned in the nature study may, 
and must, reappear in the subsequent reading lesson, 
but they should be seen from a new angle. If a child 
already knows the exact content of his reading exercise, 
there is no opportunity left for self-activity over that 
content, hence interest diminishes and a habit of mere 
word pronunciation is induced. 



TREATMENT OF MATERIAL. 19 

The reading lesson should be made a means of 
adding the element of imagery and life that should 
always follow accurate perceptive activity. Personi- 
fication is a natural method of expressing such imagery. 
Also in such lessons the human interest may be appealed 
to, and the true relation between child and nature 
taught. Admirable review lessons can also be given 
that quicken the child's knowledge and increase the 
accuracy of his ideas. (See Appendix I., especially the 
work in review, p. 135.) In such a procedure, read- 
ing becomes truly supplementary of nature work. 

Because of the character of the child's imagination, 
personification becomes the child's natural form of ex 
pression. Children readily fall into this method of mak- 
ing their stories. The slightest initiative will induce 
this form of expression, e.g., What would the dande- 
lion say to us if it could talk ? Let us ask it where it 
lives. From this most animated form of language, 
good reading most naturally grows. Its very anima- 
tion stimulates thought, makes expression natural, and 
awakens a more lively appreciation of content. 

I am a dandelion. 

My home is in the green grass. 

I like sunny places best. 

I look like a star in the grass. 

I am sun color. 

I say to the people, " Spring has come ! " 

To summarize : — 

(1) Material for first reading lessons should be drawn 

from nature study. 

(2) These first lessons should be written on the board. 



20 MANUAL OF READING. 

(3) The reading lesson should be preceded by a na- 

ture lesson in the schoolroom or a field lesson. 

(4) In these nature lessons the children should be 

trained to make their own observations. 

(5) These observations expressed in simple natural 

language should make the reading lesson. 

(6) These subsequent reading lessons should sup- 

plement the nature study, but they should 
never be a mere repetition of it. 

(7) In all this work, children should be clearly and 

simply directed. 



CHAPTER V. 

ANALYSIS OF LESSONS (Science). 

Interest in the object itself must develop before 
there can be great interest in reading about the object. 
As we have seen, the science lesson proper should not 
be the reading lesson, but the reading lesson should 
grow out of it. Science primers should in every case 
succeed the study of the objects which they describe ; 
only so is an intelligent interest possible. Let us look 
at the first two or three lessons in such a primer and 
ask ourselves about the work that should have preceded 
them. 

I am a little baby bean. 
I am white. 

I am round and smooth. 
Little Nell put me to bed in the earth. 
I like the soft warm earth. 
It is my blanket. 
My blanket covers me all up. 
The sun loves me. 
He makes my bed warm. 
The rain loves me. 
It gives me water to drink. 
I love the good rain. 
Little Nell loves me. 
She will let no one hurt me. 
21 



22 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

I love little Nell. 

I shall go to sleep now. 

Soon the sun and the rain will wake me. 

Do you know what I shall do then ? 

(For remaining lessons of series, see Appendix I.) 
It is evident, first of all, that the study of the bean 
plant, from seed to seed, should precede the reading of 
this book. Next, there should be a series of board 
lessons in reading growing out of such study, so that 
children will master a fair vocabulary of words along 
this line. They are then ready to enjoy the book. 

There are some pleasant features in the science study 
itself suggested by this little primer : — 

(1) The children are evidently supposed to have 

made their own observations. 

(2) The sequence is followed through a complete 

series, so that the close interrelation between 
parts becomes clear. The whole is seen as an 
unfolding life, and the bean plant itself as a 
completely organized system of forces, in close 
relation, and working in complete harmony. 
This biological aspect of the study is calcu- 
lated to interest children because they feel 
that real life is present. 

(3) The most important ethical value of the work 

enters with this study of life, and one of the 
most pleasing features of this lesson series is 
seen in its strong ethical force. This arises 
in part because of the care-taking relation 
between the child (who is one of the bean 
plant's friends) and the bean. But it is much 



ANALYSIS OF LESSONS. 23 

more plainly shown in the clear exhibition of 
the function and use of the various parts, so 
that the fact that each is working for all and 
all for each is clearly shown. This, as has 
been said, is one of the most important truths 
that science has to teach the child. 

(4) This conception of the intimate relation between 

life forces must grow slowly in the child mind, 
exhibited first in the study of animals in rela- 
tion to their environment, later in the study 
that shows the relation between the conti- 
nental structure and the continental life in 
geography. Such relations may be alluded 
to by the teacher in opportune moments, but 
should never be moralized over. Teaching 
should make them prominent ; these great 
truths held before the eyes constantly, now 
in one aspect, now in another, become at last 
a part of the child's everyday thought. Ethi- 
cal and religious truth may thus become a 
means of helping the child to realize his own 
ethical nature. 

(5) The forces outside the bean plant, on which it 

depends for the quickening of its own life, 
are clearly shown in this series of lessons. 
Sunshine, rain, and earth — each in its own 
way is loving and helpful. 

(6) The personification throughout is only a natural 

expression of all that the child feels here 
as life. Indeed, it may be seriously ques- 
tioned if these agencies could be properly 
represented to his mind in any other form. 



24 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

This simple series of lessons is home-made, the work 
of teachers who a few days before the writing would 
have said, " We cannot possibly write lessons for chil- 
dren or make reading lessons with children," and who 
succeeded in doing the thing they " could not " because 
they were trying, not to make a book, but rather to 
adapt science to the minds of children. It is only an- 
other illustration of the great truth, that when we 
begin truly to " live with our children " we shall learn to 
do for them all that we need to do. One of the most 
important suggestions of this little primer for young 
teachers is to help them feel that they too can do this 
work. 

There is no doubt that the most beautiful reading 
books are unprinted. They are the living books made 
by teachers and children in their daily work, and as 
they grow out of real life and express live interests, 
they have power to inspire interest in others. The 
printed slips, the children's own work or their 
teacher's, easily become little home-made books. 
Such work puts the child from the beginning into 
another relation to the book. It is nearer him. He 
has a simpler and truer notion of how books come to 
be: he can use them more intelligently. 

Children should make their own drawings from the 
object in nature work. This is the very best means of 
securing an accurate sense image of that object. " A 
pencil is the best of eyes," said Agassiz. The pencil 
has wonderful power in increasing our general percep- 
tive insight. The child who has made his own draw- 
ing from life will appreciate the illustrations of the 
book as no other child can. 



ANALYSIS OF LESSONS. 25 

All work in drawing, coloring, free paper-cntting, 
and modelling is a true adjunct of the reading work, 
since it constantly sharpens the child's visual and tactile 
senses, and adds accuracy to all his perceptions of form 
and color. Moreover, such work is preparing him for 
an intelligent use of the picture and for a more pleasur- 
able and profitable reading of the written description. 

But the picture should not supersede the object. 
For the beginning with concrete material helps the 
child afterward properly to interpret the picture. (See 
chapter on The Picture and its Use.) In all work, 
see that perceptive activity is alert, for general and 
superficial seeing must be superseded by special and 
definite seeing ; general and sentimental emotion must 
be superseded by simple, true feeling. 



CHAPTER VI. 

APPERCEPTION AND READING. 
The Water Drops. 

Some little drops of water, 

Whose home was in the sea, 
To go upon a journey 

Once happened to agree. 

A cloud they had for carriage, 
They drove a playful breeze, 
• And over town and country, 
They rode along at ease. 

But oh ! they were so many, 

At last the carriage broke, 
And to the ground came tumbling 

These frightened little folk. 

And through the moss and grasses 

They were compelled to roam, 
Until a brooklet found them 

And carried them safe home. 

{From « Stepping Stones to Literature.") 

When would you read a selection like this with your 
class? To many a second grade class it would be an 
obscure story. The class that knew nothing of evapo- 

26 



APPERCEPTION AND READING. 27 

ration, formation of clouds, rainfall, and brook life would 
find it incomprehensible. But children who have just 
finished the simple study of evaporation and rainfall, 
of clouds and brook basins, that make the beginning 
and foundation for so much of our geography work, 
would find in this selection a rare treasure. 

We have seen that the child reads what he grasps. 
Let us now state that he grasps what he apperceives or 
understands . 

All concepts, all ideas that are of any worth to us, are 
active forces. They do not reenter consciousness when 
we ask for them merely, but they often assume clear- 
ness in response to that condition of consciousness 
which calls them up. The child reared in a city home 
with a globe of goldfish among its furnishings, needs 
no one to tell him that he is looking at fish, the first 
time he finds his way to a pebbly stream and watches 
the minnows dart about or the brook trout make 
their excursions through the shady pools. He knows 
that they are fish by virtue of the fact that he possesses 
the old concept of goldfish. He interprets the new by 
means of the old concept. The new sense perception 
of minnow or trout recalls the old concept of goldfish 
to consciousness, and the process of comparison and 
interpretation goes on, with the result that the child 
understands what he sees. The process goes on very 
rapidly if the child's mind is at its best, and if both sets 
of concepts are clear, the process is then attended with 
great pleasure. 

The old concepts of goldfish are the apperceiving or 
interpreting concepts, the new concepts the interpreted 
or apperceived, and the whole process apperception. 



28 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

The important things for us to note are : — 

(1) The old concept is recalled by means of the 

related new. 

(2) The new is the object of concentration. 

(3) The process is one of comparison of the new 

with the old. 

(4) The finished process leaves the new understood. 

(5) At the close of the process the new is associated 

with the old. 

(6) The child's activity is at once spontaneous, 

fruitful, and pleasurable. 

When the child has looked at the fish for a few 
moments and goes away to tell some one that he has 
seen some fish that are not goldfish, or that he has seen 
some little brown fish, it is with the sense that he has 
acquired a new possession. From now on, when he 
recalls his concept of goldfish these other concepts will 
come, or vice versa. The new is assimilated with the 
related old. It has found its right place with other 
stores. From now on it is a living concept power. 
And whether this particular concept group grows to 
no greater wealth than it has with most of us, who 
know the fish because we eat them, or whether it 
becomes as rich and complex as that of an Agassiz, the 
fact remains that all subsequent additions to that par- 
ticular group of ideas must take place in this way. 

Apperception is the condition of knowing. It is the 
most important condition of interest. Its study makes 
one of the most helpful chapters of Psychology for the 
teacher. Without endeavoring to add to the treatises on 



APPERCEPTION AND BEADING. 29 

Apperception already written, 1 let us content ourselves 
with noting a few facts that are of especial import to 
reading. 

The first fact is this : If the right apperceiving ideas 
are present in the mind, the process of apperception 
will go on without further care. When these ideas are 
present, the child feels what is really true — that he is 
finding out the new for himself, hence a heightened 
sense of acquisition, of power, which gives genuine and 
helpful pleasure. 

Again : Under this normal process the new becomes 
the sole object of conscious attention, hence the result- 
ing product is sharp and clear. The teacher who 
explains this poem on " The Water Drops " while its 
presentation is in progress, is simply pushing in new 
apperceiving ideas, along with the ideas contained in 
the poem itself. This doubles the work by giving two 
series of ideas at the same time, and since one of these 
the pupils must apperceive before they can understand 
the other, concentration becomes impossible and the 
whole process is confused. Who of us does not remem- 
ber the dazed condition of mind in which he found him- 
self in the old school days, after one of these so-called 
explanations ? The truth is, we must explain the new 
before we teach it, paradoxical as it may sound, and only 
so can we hope to teach it successfully. 

Not all apperceiving ideas are of equal value. A lit- 
tle thought makes it very clear that the old must be 
related to the new along vital lines. The teacher who 

1 See Lange's " Apperception," published by D. C. Heath & Co., and 
"APot of Green Feathers," published by Charles Bardeen, Syracuse, 
New York. 



30 MANUAL OF READING. 

thoroughly teaches the brook basin of his own neigh- 
borhood has helped his children to form a complex con- 
cept that will be more important in helping them to 
interpret larger streams and rivers than any other that 
they could possibly form. You may increase facts 
about the length of the Rhine, its forests, its castles, its 
vineyards — but, after all, the Rhine is a river, and it 
is most important that the child see its great slopes, 
appreciate its great basin and structural relation to the 
continent. Minor ideas of forests, vine-clad hills, far- 
reaching plain, of city, castle, and cathedral, may be 
added, until the whole is rich in detail, but it is most 
important to have the simple, fundamental, structural 
ideas true, for details can be true only superficially if 
the proper apperception of the fundamental is faulty or 
wanting altogether. 

This leads us to a related fact. The character of the 
apperception determines the quality of the interest. 
The class who see the great Rhine basin as a part of 
the structural life of the continental land mass will 
come to the description of the Black Forest and upper 
Rhine, to the pictures of vineyard and castle and cathe- 
dral with a more sustained interest and a more intelli- 
gent appreciation, than a class could possibly possess 
who are adding these details to an imperfect founda- 
tion. 

We should remember that the principles on which 
such work rests are no invention of physiography or 
modern psychology or Herbartian pedagogy. They 
are based on the laws of mind, and could have been 
learned long ago by an observation of mind, as is evi- 
denced by Caesar's method of apperceiving Western 



APPERCEPTION AND BEADING. 31 

Europe illustrated in the first chapter of the first book 
of his Gallic War. 

The continuity of well-arranged subject-matter gives 
these fundamental apperceiving ideas in excellent se- 
quence, so that one thing prepares for another. But 
what has this to do with the reading class, where con- 
tinuity is the exception and not the rule, where chil- 
dren read a new " piece " each day, and where " pieces " 
rarely fit in with each other or with anything else in 
the daily programme ? 

You answer, By making the work in reading relate 
to that of other studies, drawing the material now 
from science, now from geography, now from story 
work, where apperceiving ideas have already been fur- 
nished, we shall lay the proper apperceptive basis. Such 
supplementary reading should undoubtedly form an im- 
portant part of the material for t^e reading lesson, but 
we should remember that reading must form the liter- 
ary habit. The literary habit is not well formed if the 
reading becomes superficially discursive, and if the child 
fails to gain the power of grasping selections in their 
continuity. This power can never be well developed 
by the use of " pieces," or by the excessive use of 
short selections. Our classes must be given many 
whole texts where continuity of thought is sustained. 

Said an enthusiastic teacher of reading in the third 
grade: " My class have read nothing in the half year 
that they enjoyed as they did the 'Snow Queen.' They 
read it all in one week ! " An investigation of condi- 
tions showed the following facts : The " Snow Queen," 
by Hans Andersen, is a fairy story with a rich ethical 
content. A mirror in the hands of a wicked sprite had 



32 MANUAL OF READING. 

the power of making everything reflected in it look 
ugly. At last it went to pieces, and some of its many 
tiny splinters which were floating in the air, settled 
into the eyes and heart of a little boy named Kay, 
who at once became very bright and very disagreeable. 
At last he came under the influence of the Snow Queen 
whose kiss froze his heart and made him forget his 
home and his little play-fellow Gerda. Lonely little 
Gerda whispers to the sunbeams and roses that Kay 
is dead, but they answer, " We do not believe it." At 
last she does not believe it herself. Then she goes 
to look for Kay, and after long wandering, in which 
she is helped by flowers and beasts and birds, she 
reaches the ice palace of the Snow Queen away in the 
north. There she finds Kay. Her kiss melts away 
the ice from his frozen heart, his tears wash out the 
ugly splinters, and together they return home. 

Here are some facts worth noting : — 

This class accomplished at least one-third more work 
in this single week than in any other week in the term. 
They enjoyed this story most, and they read it better. 
Why ? First, the selection was exceedingly well adapted 
to their stage of development. Again, each lesson was 
a preparation for the succeeding one, i.e. the ideas 
gained in one lesson became the apperceiving ideas for 
the next. This fact provided for a crescendo of in- 
terest. Because of all this, concentration of a better 
quality was obtained, and obtained more easily than in 
the reading of "pieces" where concentrations cannot 
support one another. Work became more spontaneous 
from day to day, as interest increased, so that a maximum 
of work was accomplished with a mimimum of labor. 



APPERCEPTION AND READING. 33 

It takes more training and a richer stock of ideas to 
interpret a fragment of a Greek statne, an arm, or 
torso, than the Venus of Milo, and this Venus could 
be more readily interpreted were the arms present in 
their original position. It takes a better equipped mind 
to interpret an isolated act from " Henry VIII." than 
the whole play. The truth is, that the single act can 
be rightly interpreted in no other way than by relating 
it to the whole. Do we not, when we fill our reading 
with fragments cut from artistic wholes, spoil the child's 
power of seeing things in due relation by placing him 
under conditions where such interpretation is impos- 
sible ? 

The law of apperception demands that we select 
no " pieces " for our reading lessons unless the whole 
is being presented by some other study, and unless this 
part has a direct articulation with that whole. A 
whole may be brief enough to be grasped in a single 
lesson, or it may be indefinitely long. Increased power 
and impetus are gained in the longer selection. 

Then wholes must be treated as wholes, i.e. parts 
should be seen in relation to each other, and the child's 
mind prepared for the efficient apprehension of the 
fundamental thought. The child's power of apperceiv- 
ing the whole is measured by his power of grasping 
the central thought. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CORRELATION OF BEADING WITH OTHER STUDIES. 

Correlation of reading with other studies has been 
implied thus far in this discussion. 

Correlation of studies is a subject which has been so 
fully discussed that its value can well be taken for 
granted here. The teacher who relates reading, writ- 
ing, spelling, and language with science has long since 
learned that there is not only a large resulting gain in 
the saving of time and energy, but she has learned that 
the work is actually better done. The science lesson 
carried forward to accurate oral and written expression 
is more thoroughly taught, and no language work is so 
effective as that which grows directly from the matter 
in which the child is interested. Reading as well as 
language receives its dynamic force from such a rela- 
tion. Spelling and writing, as right habits, can be 
learned only by practice. 

This may be called the formal side of correlation, 
but there is another side of greater worth. 

Psychology teaches us that concepts or ideas should 
not only be well formed, but they must be associated 
with related concepts. The teacher who secures interest 
in her course of lessons upon the dragon-fly will insure 
vividness to the concepts which the children are form- 
ing. If there is sharp observation during the course 
of the work, their ideas not only gain in clearness, so 

34 



CORRELATION OF READING. 35 

that the children are not merely able to distinguish the 
dragon-fly from related insects, but their ideas have 
gained in definiteness, and the child has a clear concept 
of the structure of the head, of the thorax and its 
attachments, and of the abdomen. Analysis has given 
clearness to each part and distinctness to the whole. 
Continuity in the work gives a group of closely associ- 
ated ideas — a well-articulated concept group. 

Let the teacher use comparison throughout the work, 
leading the children to compare the dragon-fly and 
some other closely related insect which they have 
studied thoroughly, e.g. the beetle. The result will be 
the close association of these two well-articulated con- 
cept groups. Both groups gain by the association itself, 
while the comparison, as it proceeds, does not merely 
form these associations but it gives clearer, sharper dis- 
tinctions to the concepts compared. 

Such work continued throughout education would 
result in the intimate association of ideas relating to 
geography with those relating to mineralogy, to physics, 
to history, etc. It would result in the relation of 
history not only to certain features in society about us 
and to events chronicled in periodicals, but to literature, 
to art, etc. It would help in the recognition of historic 
material wherever met with, and in its use as historic 
material. Intimate relations would be seen existing 
between the parts of knowledge. Clear associations 
will have been established between concept groups, 
between concept masses. Knowledge would be char- 
acterized by breadth, close articulation, system, vigor. 
The whole circle of thought would be unified. 

Such work results in the concentration of the individ- 



36 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

ual's power. Concentration as a principle in pedagogy 
is based on the great fact that " unity is power " in the 
life of a man as well as in the life of a state. The cor- 
relation of studies is but one means to this great end. 
A method which carefully compares and associates that 
which is in vital relation is another means. 

Correlation, then, if it be genuine, does not merely 
relate subjects carefully in the course of study and in 
the daily programme so that they naturally assist one 
another as apperceiving forces, but it seeks to bring 
about definite results in the mind of the child. It does 
this by a careful study of his needs and a continuous 
adaptation of the procedure to these needs. It relies 
on method as well as arrangement of matter, and above 
all it remembers that the real work of correlating and 
unifying must be done in the active minds of the children 
themselves. 

Let us examine a third grade lesson, presumably 
written by some child as the result of certain observa- 
tion in science work, and possibly printed afterward on 
slips to be used as material for the reading class. 

How My Corn Plant Grows. 

Two weeks ago my corn plant measured three inches 
from the ground to the tip of the tallest blade. One 
week ago it measured four and one-fourth inches, so 
that it gained one and one-fourth inches in a week. 

To-day it measures six inches from the ground to the 
tip of the tallest blade, so that this week it has gained 
one and three-fourths inches. This is one-half inch 
better than last week. 



CORRELATION OF READING. 37 

We have had a warm bright sun during the past 
week. There were two cloudy and cold days the week 
before. To-day the sun is so warm that the earth feels 
warm about the corn plant when I touch it. 

The leaves have grown dark green and look strong. 
Miss Brown says it is a fine plant ! George forgot to 
water his plant for three days. During that time it 
grew but one-eighth of an inch. The girth of my plant 
is about one-fourth of an inch. 

To-day we learned to say — " First the blade, then 
the ear, then the full corn in the ear." 

This child has made drawings of his corn plant in 
various stages, and will continue to make such drawings. 
The class will read together " Blessing the Cornfields," 
from Longfellow's " Songs of Hiawatha," and they will 
have a short series of history lessons on "The First 
Corn Planting in New England." 

If we ask ourselves what subjects have been related 
here, we shall find that we have not only the formal and 
necessary relation of science and language, writing and 
spelling, but also of drawing, number, history, and litera- 
ture. 

Let us go a step farther and ask why each has been 
introduced. Drawings have helped to sharpen observa- 
tion. We must perceive the object before we can repro- 
duce it in drawing, and we must perceive it accurately 
if our drawing tells the truth, hence drawing has been 
made the means of obtaining an accurate concept of the 
plant in its various stages. Why is number introduced 
here ? Evidently for the purpose of making observa- 
tions exact. It is not enough for me to see that my 
plant has grown little and my neighbor's much, but I 



38 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

must ascertain, if possible, how much more that other 
plant has grown ; last of all, I must ascertain the 
cause of this difference in growth between the plants, 
or in the same plant during different periods. This is 
good science work, and arithmetic has helped to make 
it accurate. 

But why relate the work to literature ? In order that 
the children may learn the value of corn to man and 
learn it in connection with the part that it has played 
on this continent in the earlier history of the Indians. 
But above all, a true poet teaches them here, hence the 
ethical significance of the whole is felt more truly and 
more vividly. When they have learned to think of this 
plant as one of the good gifts of the Great Spirit to 
man, they turn to our own history and are ready to 
appreciate the significance of the corn plant to the early 
settlers of New England. 

One has only to ask himself the effect of all this in 
the form of a stimulated interest, of a developed intelli- 
gence and sympathy, of a real education, to feel the 
vast gains made by associating these subjects. The 
effect in concept life will be felt afterward in geography 
work when the products of some of our western states 
are in review ; indeed, the whole significance of national 
products to national life will be more clearly appre- 
hended, more vigorously apperceived. The child who 
has worked in this way gains sharper perceptions and 
truer power in interpretation, both in literature and in 
history. 

Science work, if it be of value, leads to correct habits 
in the observation and interpretation of nature. This 
work on the corn plant measured as science is attaining 



CORRELATION OF READING. 39 

this end, and is doing so more surely because of the aid 
of other studies. Looked at objectively, every separate 
subject has gained by the correlation ; looked at sub- 
jectively, the child has gained because of the vital asso- 
ciations of related concepts, and because of the resulting 
wholesome stimulation of his own psychical life. All 
this suggests that if the parts of knowledge are to pos- 
sess real significance, they must be seen in their relation ; 
it suggests that one cannot indeed understand anything 
comprehensively without associating it with all vitally 
related things. 

When shall we relate arithmetic and drawing ? 
When they can be made efficient in giving sharpness 
and accuracy to ideas. When literature and history ? 
When they bear an intimate and valuable relation to 
the subject in hand. Remember to choose wisely the 
subjects of correlation, to introduce them at the right 
time and in the right way, so that definite and valuable 
returns may result in ideas and lively interest, and then 
reading will be truly the handmaid of the other studies 
in school. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

METHOD IN READING. 

Reading is a process of thinking. Any method of 
teaching reading must be modified by the character of 
the thinking process. Any scientific method of teach- 
ing reading must not only be in harmony with this 
particular thinking process, but it must be calculated 
to promote that process in the most fortunate way and 
direct it to definite ends. 

Before any intelligent discussion of a method in 
reading is possible, it is necessary to distinguish be- 
tween that activity which must be put forth in the 
mastery of a written or printed vocabulary and that 
which makes up the reading process proper. The 
activity of accurately learning the form of a word is 
unlike that put forth in recalling and relating concepts 
under the functioning of written words. Only the 
latter is reading. 

The ease and success of reading must always be 
measured — 

(1) By the possession of accurate visual images of 

words, 

(2) By the possession of vivid concepts associated 

with these words, 

(3) By power in uniting concepts or ideas into defi- 

nite thoughts. 

40 



METHOD IN READING. 41 

The best means of securing such mastery of words 
must always remain an important feature of the work of 
learning to read, but mere word drills must be sharply 
separated from reading proper or confusion results. 

There are four so-called methods of teaching reading 
that are each worthy of thoughtful attention. 

A. The Phonic Method. — This deals essentially with 
the mastery'of words, and like the old alphabet method 
is not a method in reading proper. In the phonic 
method words are analyzed into sounds, and each sound 
is associated with its proper character. There is a 
carefully graded procedure through the various vowel 
and consonant sounds — children learning the diacriti- 
cal marks which distinguish the various sounds, as the 
work proceeds. Power to help himself to the new word 
is gained by the child, and great skill and power in the 
recognition of new words is often acquired in the first 
year by this method. The opponents of the phonic 
system claim that, while progress is apparently more 
rapid in the early years, results do not persist. 

Skilful teachers who use this device are careful to 
separate the phonic drill from reading proper, making 
the phonic exercise a mere gymnastic which aims to 
sharpen perception for words and sounds. That this 
is not a method in reading cannot be too strongly 
emphasized. 

B. The Word Method. — The word is an object 
sharply individualized — an object that must be ana- 
lyzed and recognized as an individual. The mastery 
of the word which is presented first as a whole and 
recognized first as a whole, is the aim of the so-called 
word method. This method aims at the sharp imaging 



42 MANUAL OF READING. 

of words so that recognition is faultless and reproduc- 
tion accurate. This method groups closely related 
words, and has been further developed by the Ward sys- 
tem which has thoroughly analyzed and classified the 
words of the language and planned a carefully graded 
procedure in word mastery. It should be remarked 
that this method does not deal with the reading pro- 
cess: it aims primarily at word mastery. 

C. The Sentence Method. — The sentence is the ex- 
pression of a thought. It is the unit of language. 
The sentence method presents the sentence as a whole 
to beginners. This is recognized as a whole and after- 
ward analyzed into words. There is a carefully graded 
procedure, those sentence forms being selected first that 
promise the most interesting reading for the child with 
the introduction of the fewest possible new words. 
Care is taken to develop the "sentence sense" — the 
power of accurate and fairly rapid sentence grasp. 

It will be seen that the word and sentence methods 
are closely united, in that the teachers who employ the 
latter make the thorough mastery of the word an im- 
portant feature of the work. Such teachers claim 
that this method induces right habits in reading, since 
it makes it possible for the work of thought grasp to 
begin at once. Spontaneous interest is thus made pos- 
sible, while much of the work of word mastery goes on 
unconsciously through the repetition of the old vocabu- 
lary in new relations. 

D. The Concentration Method. — This is based on a 
principle that lies at the basis of all teaching. 

The field of vision gives us a varying number of 
objects representing varying degrees of clearness, the 



METHOD IN READING. 43 

clearest being in the centre of the field, while the 
remaining objects diminish in clearness according to 
their distance from the centre. 

This law operating in the field of vision arises from 
the structure of the eye, but it is controlled by the 
operation of the mind. We focus our eyes on the ob- 
ject which we wish to see, and so bring it into the 
centre of the field of vision, and give it the greatest 
possible degree of clearness. This increases the sharp- 
ness of the impression gained, and adds distinctness to 
the resulting sense perception. 

Attention is a mental focussing. It is the mind that 
sees. When one desires to see an object lying in the 
range of vision, the eye simply aids the mind, and the 
result is the focussing of consciousness, which gives sharp 
outline to the object of attention. The process is simi- 
lar in attention, whether senses are active or not : always 
there is a narrowing or focussing of consciousness on the 
object of thought so that clearness results. This simple 
law controls all productive mental activity. In what- 
ever way the child's mind is active, the clearness of the 
resulting images or ideas will be measured by the quality 
of the attention given the object. There is absolutely 
no comparison between the results gained from a few 
seconds of activity where there is a complete focussing 
of consciousness on the object of thought, and those 
arising from many, many minutes, or even hours of 
partial concentration. 

The concentration method recognizes the above prin- 
ciple. It secures attention through interest. It rec- 
ognizes that interest centres in content, never in form; 
it therefore chooses for the reading work material 



44 MANUAL OF READING. 

drawn from " central subjects " in which the child is 
vitally interested. It depends on the vital force of 
a simple and genuine interest for the overcoming of 
formal difficulties in reading as well as for inducing 
that thought process which is reading. Its categorical 
imperatives are : — 

(1) Everything with attention. 

(2) Interest the condition of attention. 

(3) Right content rightly mastered, the condition of 

interest. 

This method has led to some of the most charming 
and wholesome devices in reading work, and has done 
much toward helping us to teach reading. 1 

The concentration method does not stop with devices 
that are calculated to fasten the child's attention on the 
word, the visual image of which is to be formed, it both 
secures sharp sense images and also aims to put the 
child in possession of a store of clear, animated sense 
concepts, as well as of visual and auditory word images. 
In the reading process proper it asks that the mental 
energy should be focussed on the thought process proper. 

Whether we prepare for work in the primary class 
by teaching a limited vocabulary of words or start at 
once with the sentence, being careful that word mastery 
become a feature of the work, is probably unimportant; 
but the concentration method points to the condition 
under which all progress in reading must take place, 
i.e. a condition of productive self -activity. 

It must be observed that the so-called methods of 

1 For a fuller discussion of this method, as well as of other methods 
in reading, see "Talks on Pedagogics," by Francis W. Parker, E. L. 
Kellogg & Co. publishers. 



METHOD IN READING. 45 

teaching reading are all of them, with the exception of 
the concentration method, devices for helping children 
over the early difficulties of the subject. Most teachers 
who have studied methods of teaching reading are con- 
scious of no method that extends with success in its 
application beyond the early primary grades. For this 
reason, on the part of really well-trained teachers, the 
teaching of reading grows more and more unscientific 
and unsatisfactory from its inception in the first grade. 
It will be seen that the concentration method is admira- 
bly adapted to secure an excellent reading habit, since 
the vigorous use of the mental activity in the reading 
process itself is its conspicuous feature. 

It should be remarked that the relational element in 
the sentence is its distinguishing, its essential feature. 
Not concepts, but related concepts, give thoughts ; not 
words, but words in relation, must help to the essential 
thinking process in reading. Everything that detracts 
from the power to give the mind fully and freely to the 
work of relating ideas hinders in the reading process. 
Everything that exalts this power of relating ideas 
furthers it. 

Let us see what occurs when we read the following 
passage from Shakespeare's " Merchant of Venice " : — 

" There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims." 

Concepts or ideas enter consciousness recalled by 
the words that meet the eye ; the stream of con- 
sciousness is regulated by the words themselves. These 
ideas enter consciousness as active forces and blend 



46 MANUAL OF READING. 

and modify one another. There is not a word in the 
passage that does not contribute something to this 
modification and movement of thought. " Behold'st " 
suggests rapt seeing, " quiring " a full swell of harmony, 
" young-eyed " the eternal youth, the watchfulness and 
intelligence of the angel, " cherubims " names one of 
the choirs nearest God. But this halting definition is 
not what occurs when best reading takes place. The 
flow of ideas is not only regulated by the words, but it 
is as rhythmical and as perfectly modulated as the 
lines themselves. The teacher who is doing work in 
intensive reading over such rare passages carefully 
recalls related ideas, discusses certain words, challenges 
the apprehension of grammatical relation, etc., for the 
purpose of securing in the expressive reading that fol- 
lows, a full, smooth flow of related ideas. Under such 
concept movement reading becomes delightful. Some 
measure of this activity must be induced or reading 
does not take place. 

There are at least two essential features to the think- 
ing process that we call reading. The first consists in 
the essential concept movement of which the above is 
an illustration. This flow of ever changing thought 
goes on continuously when we read continuously. It 
makes up the stream of ever moving, continuously 
modified, associated ideas which the series of related 
words that pass under the eye recalls. Through this 
process we come into possession of thoughts successively. 

Another feature of the thought process which con- 
stitutes reading is what may be called the thought devel- 
opment. In a complete production the successive para- 
graphs and chapters stand in intimate sequence — the 



METHOD IN READING. 47 

content of one having a direct bearing on the following. 
The mind of the reader, grasping and holding closely 
the main thought of each paragraph or chapter as one 
succeeds the other, approaches steadily the central con- 
ception that constitutes the kernel of the whole produc- 
tion, e.g. : A class reading Shakespeare's " Macbeth " can 
appreciate Act I., Scene VII., only as they have followed 
the developing sequence of forces that culminate here 
in the deliberation and choice of Macbeth. 1 

Doubtless this phase of the reading process is most ac- 
curately secured by thinking through the whole. It is a 
process in which comparison and judgment are active and 
may properly be regarded as a process of reflection, while 
the first is more properly a process of concentration. 

This activity of recalling and relating ideas so as 
clearly to grasp the thought content begins when the 
child reads his first sentences in the primary school ; 
the process of thought development begins when he 
grasps related sentences in succession and gets the 
bearing of the whole, or when he is able to read a simple 
story and see the significance of one part in relation to 
another and to the whole. There is almost no limit 
to the possible development of power in each of these 
phases of the reading activity. 

The teacher who would become a student of method 
in reading must study everything that furthers this 
essential reading process. Some of these things have 
already been discussed under Apperception and Read- 
ing and the Correlation of Reading with other Studies. 
We shall see some other important principles in the 
methodical teaching of reading in succeeding chapters. 
1 See Appendix III. and Chapter XIII. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BEGINNING TO READ. 

The work of beginning reading is attended with diffi- 
culty. This arises from the fact that, first, a written 
language must be mastered ; and second, with the ear- 
liest act of gaining thought through the functioning of 
written words, the habit of sentence grasp must be vigor- 
ously initiated. 

Furthermore, there are minor difficulties of making 
transition from script to print, from board work to 
printed slips and books, while the need of daily repeti- 
tion of the growing vocabulary, in order that it may be 
thoroughly known, is ever present. Added to this, 
teachers in the first and second grades find few books 
at their disposal that are well adapted to the needs of 
their classes. This is especially true in large cities 
where children have had little free experience in the 
country and therefore have few and vague ideas relat- 
ing to the subjects presented in these books and conse- 
quently little interest for the books themselves. 

A thoughtful study of the foregoing suggests to the 
teacher that in preparing for her first reading lesson 
she has first to find a subject to which the child will 
gladly turn as an object of thought. From whatever 
source it is drawn it must represent to the child an 
object of interest and an object of which he has formed 
a clear visual image. 

48 



BEGINNING TO BEAD. * 9 



In the reading lesson proper the teacher desires the 
visual activity to be centred on word or sentence 
She therefore arranges work so that the children shall 
have previously satisfied their perceptive activity over 
the object which is to become the subject of the lesson. 
In this way the danger of divided attention is avoided. 
In the talk that makes up the body of the first lesson 
all the thinking must centre on this subject. If the 
teacher desires to introduce the name of the object first, 
she may, while uttering the word, write it on the board. 
The next time she omits the utterance, substituting the 
written form for the oral. In this way the children 
recall the concept through the visual form, and the work 
of associating the idea with the written word that repre- 
sents it is begun. Again and again in the first, brief, 
animated talk, is the word clearly and rapidly written, 
and each time at a moment when attention is at its best 
-at a moment when the written form will recall its 
appropriate idea. If a short sentence is written first, 
the procedure is the same. . 

Children enjoy the novelty of an exercise of this sort. 
This fact is an important advantage for the teacher, for 
before the pleasure in the novelty of the exercise is gone, 
a sustained interest in the work must be created _ 

A few words or short sentences may be presented in 
this way, the crayon doing the talking for a part of the 
time. Such connection of spoken and written language 
should make one of the most profitable and pleasant 
devices in the early reading lessons. One thing should 
be remembered : words or sentences should be written 
clearly when there is perfect concentration of attention 
on the part of the class, and they should never be left 



50 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

on the board for half looking, but the challenge for 
rapid, accurate seeing should be always made. Hence, 
as the work progresses words should be more and more 
rapidly written and more quickly erased. , 

These early sentences should represent a subject with 
an active verb. The utmost life and animation should 
enter into the work of getting thought through these 
sentences, e.g. : — 

The caterpillar eats. 
The caterpillar sleeps. 
The caterpillar crawls. 

My bird eats. 
My bird sleeps. 
My b^rd flies. 

Remember that if the word is used first it must be 
quickly followed by the sentence ; the sentence, if 
introduced first, must be analyzed into words. Every 
effort should be made to have the child grow to the 
recognition of the sentence unity and to develop the 
"sentence sense." He should be taught to read not 
word by word but sentence by sentence, i.e. the natural 
pause should be made at the end of the sentence, not 
after each word. When one writes on the board "The 
bird sleeps," he makes it possible for the act of reading 
to begin. Nothing less than subject and predicate in 
relation will do this. If words are used first, they must 
be regarded as a mere preparation for the work of read- 
ing proper. It may be questioned if this fact is not 
fundamental enough to warrant the assertion that from 

1 For further valuable suggestions see "Organic Education." 
Scott, published by D. C. Heath & Co. 



BEGINNING TO BEAD. 51 

the very beginning of any attempt to read, the sentence 
itself must be the means. 

But in avoiding Scylla let us not fall into Charybdis. 
Words, as constituent parts of the sentence, must be 
mastered and mastered thoroughly. I wish my class in 
zoology to see the jumping legs of the grasshopper first 
in their original position. This does not, however, in 
the least forbid dissection. The very nature of the 
reading process makes it necessary that the mind be 
able to give itself to the thought activity. In order to 
do this it must be as nearly unconscious as possible of 
the visual perception of words. Complete word mastery 
alone makes this possible. I must ask my class to work 
with sentences then, when they read, but I must faith- 
fully carry on daily exercises that train them in the 
sharp visual imaging of words. The word drill must 
be an essential feature of primary reading work. Only 
it must be made word-seeing not word-saying. 1 

At first the child's perceptive activity is probably 
helped by seeing the teacher write the new word or 
sentence, and he will not need to be told to " Watch 
while I write." The teacher who studies every con- 
dition that aids perceptive activity will succeed best 
in helping her class over the difficult work of mastering 
words thoroughly. The spacing of words and sentences 

1 A large number of repetitions are necessary before the word be- 
comes a durable possession as an accurate visual and auditory image. 
Children in the first and second grades should have many short books 
calculated to give them new ideas and therefore interesting reading 
through their old vocabulary. (" The Life of a Bean," see Appendix 
I., illustrates such a book.) On such natural form of repetition all 
students of a new language depend for the complete mastering of a 
vocabulary. The child, too, is learning a new, a written language. 



52 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

on the board should be considered ; words that stand 
too near each other lose something of their sharpness 
of outline; words too far apart cannot be readily com- 
pared. The lines of the writing should be clear and 
firm. All eccentricities of form should be avoided. 
Simple, clear, vertical writing should introduce the 
child to the work. 1 

Let the teacher help the child in every way to the 
accurate perception of words and sentences, and then 
count it a crime to hurry the work beyond the pace 
that will give perfect mastery. Study, therefore, to 
read as many things as possible with the little, growing 
vocabulary of words, so that there may be much repeti- 
tion with variety. The choice of the first vocabulary 
should be carefully considered. Choose only the words 
that can appear again and again in stories that the 
children enjoy. The teacher should keep a record of 
the child's growing vocabulary, and know if any words 
in this vocabulary are doubtfully mastered. Children 
are able to recognize a new word as it recurs again 
and again in the board lesson, but that same word is 
at best a partial stranger if a few days intervene with- 
out its repetition. Inexperienced teachers, deceived 

1 ' ' Dr. Colin return 6s his rules [on the hygiene of reading] as follows : 
In the future I would have all school authorities, with measuring rule 
in hand, place upon the Index librorum prohibitorum, all school books 
which do not conform to the following measurements : The height of 
the smallest 'n' must be at least 1.5 mm. [.06 inches], the least 
width between the lines must be at least 2.5 mm. [.1 inches], the 
least thickness of the 'n' must be .25 mm. [.01 inches], the shortest 
distance between the letters .75 mm. [.03 inches], the greatest length 
of text line 100 mm [.4 inches], and the number of letters on a line 
must not exceed 60." " Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. II." This may be 
made suggestive in board work. 



BEGINNING TO BEAD. 53 

by the apparent precosity of the child, are wont to in- 
crease the vocabulary too rapidly, only to find after 
a few weeks that few words are really known. Read- 
ing under such conditions becomes impossible, since it 
inevitably compels the child to concentrate his energies 
on word pronunciation in the reading hour. It is 
doubtful, indeed, if a single right habit in reading can yi 
exist under such conditions. 

A class probably cannot learn more than one new 
word a day on an average. In any case they should 
prove by the thoroughness of the work that they are 
capable of mastering more before this number is in- 
creased. The reading hour should be short, and, if pos- 
sible, should recur several times during the school day. 
Lessons should be planned that will introduce old words 
again and again in new combinations. For this reason 
serial lessons are excellent. The teacher who is able 
to write a series of simple stories about one particular 
object will find that words will naturally repeat them- 
selves, while the interest generated in one lesson appears 
as expectation and increased interest in the next lesson. 

But while the growth of the vocabulary should be 
slow, the general pace or rate of the mental activity 
during the lesson hour must not drag. Most young 
teachers make the mistake of working too slowly with 
their classes. The child's mind should be challenged; 
it should be made to do not only accurate visualizing 
and exact thinking, but it should be made to do this 
as quickly as it can be done and done well. Indeed, it 
must be done quickly if it is done well. 

That the rate of procedure has a direct influence on 
the process of concentration has not been sufficiently 



54 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

understood. Movement is one of the striking features 
of concept life. Animated movement not only ex- 
presses interest, but tends directly toward the promo- 
tion of interest. 

Even in intensive thinking, when there seems to be 
little forward movement of mind, there is, nevertheless, 
a strong movement about the object of thought. Con- 
cept movement often characterizes the going deeply 
into a subject, and becomes a movement down and 
around, rather than onward. 

Children skip and run ; the sober pace of the grown- 
up is often a trial to them. What is their natural 
mental pace ? Do we hurt our classes most by strong, 
firm, onward movement or by a hesitating pace that 
induces a habit of mental lounging, where they look 
without seeing, and listen without hearing, and read 
without thinking? 

Study the rate of movement in the reading lesson. 
Adjust the pace to the general condition of the class 
and to the character of the thought itself. Just as a 
stream begins to deposit the material that it is carrying 
when movement becomes slow, so thought activity be- 
gins to drop and lose its treasures under the retarded 
pace. Do not let the stream of consciousness slow 
down beyond the carrying point. 

The first work in reading gains its chief significance 
from the great fact that it is initiating the most funda- 
mental and valuable intellectual habit. The reading 

1 The study of the motor side has greatly helped in the work of 
securing better habits of attention in the schoolroom. Frequent and 
appropriate motor reactions should follow periods of intense concen- 
tration. 



BEGINNING TO READ. 55 

habit, reading power, is the most precious intellectual 
gift that the school holds for the child. If this habit 
fail of initiation in the first year there is, for the aver- 
age child, but slender chance of its afterward being 
induced with real vigor and power. The teacher of 
the first grade who has trained a class that concen- 
trate immediately on the subject of thought, when 
they reach the reading hour, and who love these hours 
and their reading book, has performed a work in their 
intellectual training of unequalled importance. 

We might properly regard first-year work as the 
place where the school initiates habit. It is here that 
the habit of spelling is formed. The reading lesson 
and language lesson provide the important opportunity 
for learning to spell. When the teacher in the reading 
hour trains her class to note accurately the form of 
the new words, to distinguish carefully these words 
from related words so that the visual image is abso- 
lutely definite, she is doing excellent work in spelling. 
She is doing the same excellent work when, in the 
written language lesson, she trains the child never to 
create a word about the form of which he is doubtful. 
Such training develops the habit of spelling correctly. 
This consists of the habit — 

(1) Of attending sharply to the form of new words. 

(2) Of looking up faithfully all doubtful words. 

Children in the early grades should be taught to ask 
for words about which they feel doubt (this asking 
habit being transformed later to the habit of consult- 
ing the dictionary). At the beginning of a written 
language exercise that involves words with whose 



56 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

forms the children are doubtfully familiar, the class 
may be allowed to make a list of words that they think 
they will need, and the teacher should write them on 
the board, where they remain during the subsequent 
hour. 

In the work of beginning to read the teacher must 
initiate the habit — 

(1) Of forming accurate visual and auditory images 

of words. 

(2) The habit of concentrating on thought through 

the written sentence. 

In doing this the work of reading begins. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE READING PROCESS. 

From the preceding, it becomes obvious that the 
power to grasp thought will be largely measured by 
power in concentration. If a young man in the high 
school is to possess the power that will enable him to 
read " Julius Ceesar " with a clear grasp of the central 
thought, he must be able to see the bearing of one 
thing on another ; the relation of parts and the propor- 
tion of the whole must stand out clearly in his mind. 
The development of such power should begin in the 
first primary class, and it should continue uninter- 
ruptedly throughout school life. 

The observance of a few simple laws will greatly 
aid in the development of such power : — 

(1) The child should concentrate as much as pos- 

sible on the thought from the beginning. 

(2) He should be taught to grasp sentence wholes 

from the beginning. 

(3) He should exercise the maximum of his power 

in doing this quickly and accurately. The 
law should be, the highest speed consistent 
with the greatest accuracy. 

(4) The written symbol should recall the concept 

directly, never the concept through the oral 

word. 

57 



58 



MANUAL OF READING. 



Just as the child gains the thought immediately 
through the spoken word, so he should grasp it through 
the written word. The latter should be much the 
easier and swifter process. 



MOTOR AREA 




L__V 



The Left Hemisphere of the Brain. 

S. Represents the centre for speech. 
A. Represents the auditory centre. 
V. Represents the visual centre. 

I. Represents an assumed centre for ideational activity. 

When the child is busy listening to spoken words the 
centres A and I are active. When he speaks to express 
thought the centres I and S are active with a kind of 
resonant activity in A (since one hears himself speak, 
although he does not listen consciously to his own 
speech). When he reads to get thought, V and I are 



THE BEADING PROCESS. 59 

active. When he reads aloud at sight, grasping and 
giving thought at the same time, V and I and S and A 
are all active at once. 

Think of the enormous complexity of the process that 
is forced on the child all at once when he is asked in 
the first primary grade to begin at once to read aloud. 
He is doing two things at once, for two distinct pro- 
cesses are involved : the first is the thought grasp, the 
second is the thought expression ; moreover, these two 
processes are somewhat opposed — the first being the 
receptive form of self-activity, the second the impulsive 
form. Plainly, these two processes must be separated 
in the beginning ; the receptive must precede the im- 
pulsive, impression must precede expression. 

Oral reading has been used largely as a device for 
ascertaining if the child had mastered the words. 
Mischievous results have followed the abusive use of 
one process for the purpose of seeing that another pro- 
cess has been performed. 

It may be seriously questioned if thousands of teach- 
ers who are teaching children " reading " do not deem 
the smooth utterance of words the great end of their 
work. That such teaching should lead directly to word 
pronunciation where no whit of the true reading process 
is present, is not strange. 

When a child reads words only, V alone is active. 
When he reads to pronounce words merely, V and S are 
active with a resonance in A. In both cases the higher 
centre is inactive. A habit of this kind leaves it fallow. 
What shall we say of an education that induces such 
habits by its mode of procedure, that cripples the mind 
that it purposes to aid by leaving the higher thinking 



/ 



60 MANUAL OF READING. 

powers stagnant and inactive during that period of life 
when they should be developing ? If these powers do 
not gather strength and gain control, from whence comes 
the directing force in the individual life ? Can teaching 
be stupid and ethical at the same time ? 

Let the teacher in the first primary room write a story 
on the board. Let the child find out the story, and then 
come and whisper it to the teacher. Let one child 
whisper the story to the teacher. Let the teacher write 
the story as the child whispers it, class get the thought, 
then perform an act to prove that it has been read. 
VlLet the children ask questions about the object in 
science which they desire to have answered ; the crayon 
answering them. Let the teacher write questions, the 
children giving answers. Let the children live into a 
picture, teacher tell its story with crayon : children 
silently finding out and telling the story. Let these 
and many other devices be introduced, that will enable 
the child at the beginning of reading to concentrate his 
whole power on the one great process of grasping the 
thought. 

Several years ago I saw a very suggestive first-grade 
lesson under the direction of the late Dr. Mary V. Lee. 
The point of the lesson was to teach the children the 
personal pronouns. The children read each story 
silently and then acted out what each story called for 
while they read the story aloud, e.g.: — 

We have a book. 
You have a box. 
I have the buttercup. 
He has a fan. 



THE READING PROCESS. 61 

The work delighted the children, and the device 
separated the process of thought getting from that of 
thought expression. Children should frequently be 
allowed to get the thought, and then give it without 
any reference to the written form. Only make the 
challenge severe — one thing at a time, but that one 
thing done perfectly. Teach the children to see and 
see quickly and accurately ; if they can grasp the 
thought accurately with one look, so much the 
better. 

A small child was once found in tears over his arith- 
metic. His mother tried to comfort him and said : 
"Can't you get the answer? Let me help you." "I 
can get the answer all right," he sobbed, "but it's the 
process that kills me." Children may be trusted to 
grasp the thought through written words with astonish- 
ing rapidity when steps are carefully taken, but when 
the process is made too complex, and they are asked to 
grasp the thought and give it at once, and that when 
words as written symbols are as strange to them as 
Chinese characters are to us, they are indeed in the 
sorry plight of the small boy with his arithmetic. 

If the teaching of physiological psychology is true, 
then the menace in learning to read is in making the 
written word recall the oral word instead of immedi- 
ately recalling the idea. Excessive oral reading induces 
this habit, and this is doubtless why in nearly every 
school one can find children in every class who pro- 
nounce words, merely. They have been required to do 
this when that was as much as they could attend to. 
The words they must pronounce — the process could 
be simplified only by leaving out the thought grasp. 



62 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

Such children exercise V and S and A (see diagram), 
but exercise I very little, if at all. 

A young teacher in a recent class report names a 
child who is one of the poorest readers in the class, 
but who is able to grasp the thought accurately at one 
reading. It may be questioned if this child were not 
the best reader in the class. Query, — Why was he a 
poor oral reader ? 

The following interesting case was reported by an 
intelligent teacher who believes that it represents a 
more than usually natural child yielding to the ten- 
dency to give himself up to the full sway of the thought 
process. 

" In a reading class in the grammar school at F , 

a boy of thirteen being called upon one day, read the 
first few sentences smoothly and quickly, but gradually 
read more slowly, till at last he ceased to speak at all. 
He still stood, however, book in hand, and evidently 
finished the selection, when he resumed his seat as 
though nothing unusual had happened. When ques- 
tioned by the teacher, he looked surprised and a little 
embarrassed, but replied, ' I read it all ! ' 

"This frequently happened afterward. Sometimes 
the child realized what he had done and apologized, 
offering as an excuse that he had been trying to find 
out what it meant. 

" This boy is fairly bright in all his subjects, but is 
an especially good reader and an excellent story-teller. 
He does very good work in geography and is a wonder 
on account of his free lead pencil sketches, but he is 
not up to the average in arithmetic." 

Oral reading has been almost the only device used 



THE BEADING PROCESS. 63 

up to the present time to prove that the child has 
grasped the thought. It should be one of several 
important devices. The teacher should make the board 
lesson for the class sometimes, telling the story orally 
and using the written form for a part. This is par- 
ticularly fortunate where dialogue enters or a story is 
inserted within the story — the story inserted making 
the written part. Such writing should be clone clearly 
and rapidly, and when interest is at its height, the 
teacher trusting her eyes to make sure that the thought 
is grasped. Again, let the teacher and class make a 
board story together while some member of the class 
is asked to leave the room. When he returns let him 
read the story silently, and then read to the class, or 
better still, read it silently and then turn and tell the 
story back again to all. No better concentration could 
possibly be obtained from the whole class than through 
such a device. 

But when would you unite the two processes, when 
would you have the work of grasping and giving 
thought at the same time begin ? The answer is, Just 
when the children are ready, no sooner. Earlier it 
cannot begin without doing infinite harm. When the 
child shows you by undoubted symptoms that he is 
ready to carry on both processes at once, losing no whit 
of his hold on the important ideational process, let him 
do it. He will read to you then exactly as he would 
talk. Expression he should never be conscious of at 
all. Indeed, expression in oral reading is a matter not 
to be discussed. The thought itself makes its own 
expression, and it should do this as simply and perfectly 
in the case of oral reading as in the case of speaking. 



64 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

It should be noticed that in suffering from brain fag, 
or any other condition that enfeebles ideational activity 
or causes it to cease entirely, we miscall more words 
when reading. Errors of this sort are sometimes so 
egregious as to be startling. If we are reading orally 
under such conditions, we often stumble, hesitate, and 
read in a generally bungling fashion. Does this sug- 
gest that the higher ideational centres when function- 
ing vigorously react on the visual and speech centres as 
a stimulating force ? May it not be true that on the 
psychical side as on the physiological the higher centres 
act as a controlling force ? May not the ideational pro- 
cess be the governing force in reading, regulating the 
rate of seeing and saying, and determining the char- 
acter of the visual perceptions themselves as well as 
the character of the motor impulses ? If this be true, it 
is but another proof that the centre and soul and life 
of the whole activity of reading is the thinking process. 

From every side it becomes apparent that the impera- 
tive thing is to secure concentration of the thought 
through the written words. Attention fastens on the 
written form because of what it gains. We listen be- 
cause we get something by means of the auditory 
impressions. Visual and auditory impressions when 
we are dealing with symbols function with respect to 
something else. We listen to words, but we listen for 
ideas. I look to see the word and through it seize the 
idea. If the content presented has been previously 
mastered, the incentive for the visual activity is gone. 

Reading should be, throughout the grades, the most 
delightful work of the day, as it is the most important 
when teachers give their whole thought to the great 



THE READING PROCESS. 65 

central ideational process ; then will excellent devices 
multiply which will give variety and zest, making read- 
ing attractive from its very beginning, so that a love 
for books will begin in the first primary grade, and a 
true literary taste find its genesis there. 

Let us repeat the few important truths drawn from a 
study of the psychology of reading : — 

(1) The grasp of thought through the written char- 

acters is reading. 

(2) The processes of grasping and giving thought 

are two processes in one. 

(3) At the beginning of the work the child can 

master but one of these. 

(4) He reads when he masters the first. 

(5) The forcing of the two processes defeats the end 

of reading. It interrupts the essential idea- 
tional process or it induces a halting habit. 

(6) The child should unite the two processes when 

he has developed the power to do so, not 
sooner. 

(7) The higher ideational process stimulates a] id 

regulates the lower visual and motor activi- 
ties over words and in speech. 

(8) Concentration must be on the thought through 

the written word. 

(9) Reading must always present an interesting 

content in order to secure vigorous ideational 
activity that will act as an incentive to the 
mastery of the written form. 



CHAPTER XI 

PEINCIPLES IN APPLICATION. 

Reading, as has been seen, is a process of thinking. 
The symbols are mere means, the process par excellence 
is that of grasping the thought. What is involved in 
getting the thought of another ? Let us try to analyze 
this process on which all the work of reading hinges, 
as it must take place in any mind in order that it may 
grasp this little fragment from Browning : — 

The year's at the Spring, 
And day's at the morn, 
Morning's at seven ; 
The hill-side's dew-pearled ; 
The lark's on the wing, 
The snail's on the thorn ; 
God's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world. 

As we have seen, thoughts are concepts in relation ; 
thinking is bringing concepts into relation. We have 
here words in relation. These words represent con- 
cepts. The relation of the concepts in the mind of 
Browning determined in the main the relation of the 
words in this poem. The process of getting Brown- 
ing's thought must be something like the following : — 

(1) My eye takes in the words of the poem in their 
relation. 

66 



PRINCIPLES IN APPLICATION. 67 

(2) These words recall the concepts for which they 

stand in the order determined by the words. 

(3) These concepts are related in consciousness. 

(See p. 45.) 

On what condition can I grasp Browning's thought ? 
First, on the condition that I have corresponding con- 
cepts ; second, on the condition that I can bring these 
concepts into corresponding relations. 1 

Of course the wealth of related concepts that I bring 
to the work — my personal attitude toward the ideas 
involved, the amount of content that I am able to put 
into such words as " God," " heaven," " world," " All's 
right," " dew-pearled," etc., will be strong modifying 
influences. But the main process described above must 
be gone through by every mind that would think 
Browning's thought, the differences in details are 
individual variations. Now a very important thing 
must be noted in this reading process. Activity must 
focus in the ideational process. Consciousness must 
be centred on the thought relation. The mind 
must be intent on relating ideas. This is always 
true of one who is reading successfully. The recall of 
words should be automatic and unconscious. Of this 

1 "Getting the Author's Thought" is a somewhat misleading ex- 
pression. Every thoughtful student in psychology knows that no 
one could possibly expect to secure a succession of concepts exactly 
similar to those of the writer whom he reads. More than this, he 
knows that in reading one of his own productions the succession 
of concepts would never be exactly repeated, hence, the thought is, 
in each reproduction, slightly different from that in any preceding 
one. But in reading the author largely controls our thinking, and the 
expression, "Getting the Author's Thought," has therefore an intel- 
ligible and justifiable use. 



68 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

recall we probably are unconscious if concentration is 
perfect. 

It is very clear that the teacher who regards reading 
as a process of thought getting will proceed in one 
way, while the teacher who thinks of reading as an 
oral exercise carried on in connection with the book 
will proceed in quite another way. The first will 
direct all her efforts toward inducing a vigorous carry- 
ing-out of the central process. Her devices will all 
tend to concentration on it. She will measure her suc- 
cess by the growing power of the children to live into 
now one form of literature, now another. She will find 
no limit to the possible power that may be developed. 
She will be surprised at the variety and individual char- 
acter of the children's responses. She will be gratified 
by the growing interest. She is working with the cen- 
tral life of her subject, and the children respond with 
thought, emotion, desire, living images, growing im- 
pulse, and this life that she is helping on in its develop- 
ment reacts as a quickening force upon her own. She 
is teaching. 

The second teacher, who has her psychical vision 
fixed upon oral expression as the end in view, pro- 
ceeds quite differently. The words must be properly 
uttered. What now is the right expression ? Since 
she has no rational means of determining this, she 
must find a more formal way. The reading must not 
drag, enunciation must be clear, pauses must be made 
in the right place. The child must hold his book in 
the right hand. The head must be held erect ; he 
must count one (silently) for the comma, two for the 
semicolon, three for the colon, and four for the period. 



PRINCIPLES IN APPLICATION. 



69 



From this teaching two results follow. Mary astonishes 
us by the glib way in which she rattles off her stanza 
of the " Psalm of Life," and we question gravely if she 
knows what she is reading. Mary sits with satisfied 
pride. She knows that the teacher herself could not 
have gone through the process more expeditiously. 
John, poor fellow, who is not often called on, rises 
doubtfully and utters his stanza a word at a time, with 
pauses of varying lengths, depending on the difficulty of 
the word to be pronounced. The voice keeps the forced 
« dead level." He is ashamed of himself, and he hates 
reading. Mary and John are exceptions, but they are 
exceptions found in most schools, and in some schools 
these exceptions are numerous enough well-nigh to make 

the rule. . , ■ 

When one has learned to read and has acquired a 
discriminating taste in reading, he is in possession of 
the most important feature in education that the school 
can possibly give. Wanting this power to read, he is 
in no sense educated, though he be a post-graduate 
student at one of the first universities. Neither Mary 
nor John know how to read, and saddest o all they are 
neither of them likely to learn. The school has induced 
a totally wrong attitude toward books on the part of 
one ail a strong disinclination for books on the part 
of the other. "But," it may be urged by some one 
"there are few teachers indeed, who regard reading as 
mere word pronunciation, who are themselves content 
with the glib pronunciation , most reading t^ 
to interest the children in the thought. This con Ad 
hardly be granted, if all the schools supported by public 
moneys ar! included. The fact is, that on the part of 



70 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

many teachers, almost the sole means of thought get- 
ting is made through oral reading, and the lesson 
counts for little more than an exercise for the class in 
pronunciation. 

The writer once visited a more than usually attrac- 
tive primary class in the city of I . A group of 

children were asked to take their places for a reading 
exercise. A printed slip, growing out of previous sci- 
ence work, was passed to each child. The children 
were given a few minutes to read the slips silently 
before the work of oral reading began. One child in 
the group almost immediately forgot everything but 
the bit of literature before him ; his concentration was 
complete. Every other child read "with half an eye." 
It was inferred that this divided attention grew out of 
the consciousness of the class being centred on the 
oral reading for which this was but a preparation. 
The class were interested in reading as an oral exer- 
cise which had for them something of the character of 
an exhibition. The true meaning of oral reading they 
were not getting, while thought grasp was enfeebled by 
the weakened concentration. Does not excessive oral 
reading generate a kind of self-consciousness ? 

When we disabuse ourselves of our prejudices in 
favor of excessive oral reading and begin to work sim- 
ply and solely to develop power in reading and a right 
taste for books, we shall be surprised at the number 
and variety of devices that will be invented for the pur- 
pose of helping both teacher and child. Reading aloud 
will then become a delightful pleasure. 

Oral reading should by no means be left out of the 
school course. It may enter early as one of several 



PRINCIPLES IN APPLICATION. 71 

excellent exercises connected with the reading work. 
Reading aloud gives expression to the thought that has 
been grasped. To the teacher it may be made an 
invaluable means of determining the character of the 
thought activity. To the child it may be a most 
wholesome means of sharing pleasure and stimulating 
intellectual and social sympathy. Always it should be 
the spontaneous expression of the thought process that 
is going on parallel with the uttered words. 
To recapitulate : — 

(1) The reading process takes place when the words 

in order recall concepts in relation. 

(2) It is greatly modified by apperceiving ideas. 

(3) The consciousness of the reader should be cen- 

tred on the ideas. 

(4) The teacher's view of the reading process will 

determine his procedure and its results. 

(5) Over emphasis of oral reading produces self- 

consciousness and weakened concentration on 
the part of the class. 

(6) Oral reading should be introduced as a single 

phase of reading work, i.e., as a means of 
self-expression. 



CHAPTER XII. 

" READING TOGETHER." 

The schoolroom is the centre of a social life, and 
reading together should be one of the means of devel- 
oping social sympathy and of stimulating intellectual 
growth. There are doubtless many ways for teacher 
and class to read together. The book or the leaflet in 
the schoolroom library that has been read by each, and 
that has afterward been made the subject of a free 
discussion in one of the reading hours, where opportu- 
nity is given for citing parts that have been specially 
enjoyed, or in discussing the significance of this or that, 
or why this or that happened, or what in the hero is 
liked best, etc., has been read together. The selection 
that has been read orally by all, where the succession 
of ideas occupy the consciousness of all, has been read 
together. The gem from Longfellow that is carefully 
thought through under the direction of the teacher's 
questions and suggestions, that is grasped by all while 
only one perhaps reads it aloud, has been read together. 

The class, with books open at the same page, — who 
are " taking their turn " while their minds are variously 
occupied ; a few in watching for mistakes (strange 
device !), other few with the content of the page before 
them ; this boy with the loss of his marbles and that 
with the injustice of the teacher, while still another is 
wondering where he can borrow a knife to fashion a 

72 



"READING TOGETHER." 73 

well-planned whistle, etc., — this class are not reading 
together. 

When the primary teacher comes to the book for the 
first time, she meets her first great obstacle in trying to 
have the class read together. It is evident that if she 
tries to keep back the quick pupils to the pace which 
the slow ones must take, she will induce habits of mind- 
wandering that will be disastrous to the reading habit. 
Plainly, at this point, these minds should not be har- 
nessed together in the work of thought getting. What 
can be done ? 

Said an excellent principal of long experience : " I 
discovered that a little beginning class in reading met 
one of the most difficult obstacles when they used the 
book for the first time and were required to keep 
together. This year we said, ' We will let the chil- 
dren take their own pace in getting the thought, 
unhampered by each other.' The experiment was a 
success. When I entered the room each child was 
eager to show me where he was reading. All were 
doing genuine work. This class has developed a great 
love for books. One day when their teacher was 
about to tell them a story, they asked if she would not 
read it to them instead." Oral reading had become 
more attractive to these children than story telling. 

Let a class who have had a series of board lessons 
growing out of their study of the bean take such a 
series of lessons as is shown in Appendix I. and busy 
themselves in reading, reporting to the teacher from 
time to time, so that she is assured that the work is 
being done accurately. Then let the children come 
together to have a little talk, now over "The Baby 



74 MANUAL OF READING. 

Bean in Bed," now about the " Awakening of the Baby 
Bean," etc. In this way the children really live the 
book through together. This is securing a common 
self -activity which is beneficial and stimulating to all 
and harmful to none. 

There is a kind of reading together that unites the 
whole class mind in a common work of vivid realization. 
Many selections that should enter the reading hour can 
only be read in this way. Let us examine a little poem 
from Tennyson as an illustration of this. 

The Eagle. 

He clasps the crag with hooked hands ; 
Close to the sun in lonely lands 
Ring'd with the azure world he stands. 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls, 
He watches from his mountain walls, 
And like a thunderbolt he falls. 

Let a fourth or fifth grade class, after a study of the 
eagle in their science work on birds, be given this won- 
derful little poem. The six lines give a complete pic- 
ture. How can we treat the poem so that the class will 
actually visualize the whole ? 

One plan might be to recall the important character- 
istics of the eagle suggested by the poem before open- 
ing the books at all, — the great strength and swiftness 
of the creature, his life in upper air, his love for lonely 
haunts, his habits with his prey. With these apperceiv- 
ing ideas close to consciousness turn to the poem and 
live it through slowly, line by line. Note the force of 



"READING TOGETHER." 75 

such expressions as " clasps," "hooked hands," "ring'd," 
"azure world," "wrinkled sea," "crawls," "thunder- 
bolt," etc. By no means let this work drop into defini- 
tion, but let it rather be a vivid realizing of what the 
expression suggests. Now let some one read it aloud. 
Last of all, let one repeat from memory. 1 

A charming and profitable phase of reading together 
may be secured when the teacher reads to his class. For 
a teacher to love the expressive side of reading, and to 
love to share with his children the rarest book treats, 
means the securing of much common pleasure and the 
stimulation of the reading habit. 

I fancy that many a child and youth feels over his 
teacher's reading as the pupil in the drawing-room feels 
over the strokes of his master's pencil. He were a 
foolish master who never took the brush in his own 

1 Reading, more than any other study perhaps, depends for interest 
and effectiveness, on the imaging power of the child. In the High 
School we appreciate the splendid power of a student who can read 
Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" or Longfellow's "Golden Le- 
gend," with a vivid reproduction of their imagery. His pleasure and 
power in the work is immeasurably greater than that of the average 
student who probably reconstructs this imagery in the most faulty and 
fragmentary way. 

The average child in the beginning class undoubtedly images quite 
spontaneously in reading. If the power were properly trained, it would 
give the pupil a stock of sense images which would be invaluable in 
future reading work. From the earliest primary class teachers should 
allow the child to read nothing involving sense imagery unless he has 
a stock of concepts that will make vivid realization of the content pos- 
sible. Preparatory work in reading should include work in providing 
adequate sense images. To this end the school should spare no pains 
in providing for sense experience. "The book," says Professor Dewey, 
" is harmful as a substitute for experience, it is all-important in inter- 
preting and expanding experience." 



76 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

hand, to stimulate the motor activity of his pupils through 
their eyes. Such object lessons are not lost. They are 
model lessons, in fact. To know how to read to a class, 
and to know when and what to read to them, is to 
greatly increase the social spirit of the school, stimulate 
interest in reading, and make the children love the hour 
of reading together. 

There are teachers who read a book like " Little Lord 
Fauntleroy" with their class during the last hour of 
the Friday session. Some who read the passage from 
Homer that has been the subject of study in the litera- 
ture or story work : others who read the history of 
Joseph or Moses right from the Bible, and do this in a 
way to give their classes rare, unforgettable moments. 
Who shall say that they are not teaching reading ? 

We crave sympathy in our pleasures. If children 
are to enjoy books, they must be helped to rare hours of 
delightful intercourse with beautiful things, an inter- 
course more precious, more full of life-giving influences 
because it is stimulated by a sense of sympathy, of com- 
mon feeling, of common life. 

It is in reading together that the pure literary taste 
is formed and the love of books engendered. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

GETTING THE CENTRAL THOUGHT. 

The most advanced students who have been well 
trained read for two main purposes : first to supple- 
ment and fill out their regular work in its various 
lines, and second for the love of it, — to satisfy a 
genuine literary taste. Most of these students have 
already found their favorite authors, and love their 
comradeship as of congenial friends. Such students 
read for knowledge ; they read also for recreation, for 
inner refreshment. 

As has been suggested, the child in the primary 
department should find these two sides early in his 
school experience. The first he finds represented by 
supplementary reading from science, and later from 
story work, geography, and history. The second he 
finds represented by well-selected poems and fables 
and whole texts that are truly classic and that intro- 
duce him at once to choice literature. The develop- 
ment of the taste for good books will depend in large 
part on the character of the literature that is put into 
the child's hands, but it will depend also on the treat- 
ment of such material in the reading hour. Literary 
insight must be developed, or the individual taste 
will be in danger of becoming whimsical, unregulated, 
one-sicled, and the reading habit will be of doubtful 
continuity. 

77 



78 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

Books, like pictures, may be trusted to teach them- 
selves to some extent, but one has only to sit down for 
an hour's careful analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's " Last 
Supper," Raphael's "Transfiguration," or Tintoretto's 
" Crucifixion," to convince himself that insight comes 
with study. The amount of study, and the character of 
study, depends on the picture itself. This is true of 
books. The teacher who is reading " Hans Brinker " 
with his class, contents himself by introducing a 
picture, by sketching a map, or by showing some his- 
toric object here and there to help the children more 
vividly appreciate the content. The discussion at the 
close of each section gives sufficient opportunity for 
the work of interpretation. But there are stories 
and books that must be more closely studied, selec- 
tions in which nothing is grasped unless the kernel 
of the whole is found. Let us look at an illustration 
of this kind : — 

The Donkey and the Grasshopper. 

Once upon a time a donkey heard a grasshopper 
chirping in the grass. He was very much pleased 
with the beautiful song. "Ah," said he to himself, 
"if I could sing like that how happy I would be." 
So he bowed low to the grasshopper and said, " Kind 
friend, what food do you eat to make your voice so 
sweet?" "I drink the evening dew," replied the 
grasshopper. The foolish donkey tried to live on the 
same food and died of hunger. Foolish fellow ! He 
was not born to sing. 

(From " Stepping Stones to Literature," Second Reader.) 



GETTING THE CENTRAL THOUGHT. 79 

This little fable is taken from a reader, one of the 
striking features of which is the great number of 
selections that are true wholes, that is, contain a cen- 
tral thought of real interest, which the framework and 
setting bring out clearly. Such selections not only are 
admirably adapted to interest the child, for the child is 
always interested when he is receiving something of 
real worth that is adapted to his needs, but their sim- 
plicity and brevity afford an admirable opportunity for 
developing the power of encompassing a whole and 
grasping the central thought. 

"Be content to do your own work," embodies the 
central truth of this fable. In teaching selections of 
this sort it is important for the teacher himself to reach 
a clear comprehension of the central truth, and then to 
decide how he can lead his class to find it. 

Children will readily enough see that the grass- 
hopper must have the food for which he is adapted, 
and do the work for which he is adapted ; and, in seeing 
this, they instinctively feel the futility and absurdity 
of the donkey's attempt at imitation. Little children 
enjoy the humor of such selections as adults rarely do. 
Now they must be led to see that the donkey had an 
important work of his own, for which he was well 
fitted. They will love to tell of the work of other 
creatures, the horse, the dog, the birds. Of each they 
see that it takes up the work for which it is adapted. 
The teacher's quiet " Yes, every creature has its own 
place and should do its own work," is a sufficient gen- 
eralization. If she wishes application, the simple " I 
wonder if boys and girls have their own work to do ? " 
will be enough. Little children should be taught the 



80 MANUAL OF READING. 

great truth that the work they are doing each day is as 
truly work, if it be done well, as that which father and 
mother are doing. Children should never be hurried 
on to such a central thought, but should grow to it 
slowly and grasp it clearly. 

The value of such work as this in developing a real 
literary insight may be more clearly seen in a more sus- 
tained production. Let us take Browning's " Herve 
Riel" as an illustration. (For the text of this poem 
see Appendix III.) Here is an important truth for 
an American child : true patriotism is unselfish ; the 
patriotic act is not performed — for the sake of reward. 

The poem presents work for several lessons. Let 
us try to find subdivisions that represent unities, 
each of which may be taught in one lesson. The 
following divisions could be made : — 

(1) The Pursuit. 

To, "Then was called a council." 

(2) The Council. 

Ending with, " Give the word." 

(3) The Volunteers. 

To, " Not a minute more to wait." 

(4) The Rescue. 

Ending with, " Pleasant riding on the Ranee." 

(5) The Reward. 

Ending with, "Nothing more." 
(9) The Poet's Tribute. 
To end of poem. 

Careful work must be done in preparation for a 
series of lessons of this sort. (See discussion of Apper- 



GETTING THE CENTRAL THOUGHT. 81 

ception, Chapter VI.) This preparatory work should, 
first, review important facts in history bearing on the 
point, e.g. general condition of France, of England, 
power of the English navy ; second, it should review 
geography of the locality, which gives the setting of 
the poem, locating places named in the poem ; third, 
it should review the events immediately preceding that 
narrated in the poem, that is, the defeat at the Hogue, 
position of fleets. Such preliminary work of prepara- 
tion should be done with each unity, as showing the 
value of her navy to the French nation, the work of 
pilots, their knowledge of the coast, and before the 
sixth division the pupils should be told something of the 
way in which France has honored Napoleon, and should 
be given some idea of the great gallery of the Louvre, 
and the feeling of Frenchmen for it. Compare the 
fame of Herve Kiel's act as depicted in a picture hung 
in the Louvre and as sung by Browning. Help them 
to see how a great poet immortalizes the deed that he 
sings. 

A good plan to follow in the study of such a poem 
is for the teacher to read the selection through to the 
class after the preparatory work is finished, so as to 
put the whole before them. Now begin the special 
study of the various divisions. Let the class live fully 
into each division ; ask for no oral reading of this divi- 
sion until it has impressed itself on the class thought. 
After the last division has been read, give a final lesson, 
in which you lead the class to a clear grasp of the cen- 
tral thought. What is Herve Riel offered? Why did 
he desire to serve? (" Burn the fleet, and ruin France? 
That were worse than fifty Hogues ! ") His reception 



82 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

of honor and reward. (" Just the same man as before.") 
His motive. 

Now let the pupils name others who have acted in 
this way — Leonidas, Alfred the Great, Washington. 
Bring out the motive of action in each case. Com- 
pare these heroes, and decide why they served. The 
teacher should confirm the class judgment with a 
definite though quiet assent, "Yes, the true patriot 
never serves for the sake of reward." In application 
the teacher may allow the class to decide if our own 
nation has need of patriots (our late war with Spain 
developed some admirable examples of quiet acts of 
heroism). 

Not all selections can be treated in this way, but 
when the whole import of a text is to teach some one 
important truth, the pupils should be helped to see 
that truth clearly and strongly. Power in literary 
insight grows with such work. One feels this in 
more sustained productions (see Appendix IV.), but 
too often overlooks the fact that the child's earliest 
reading should give the beginning of such power. 
The child who clearly grasps the thought of the sen- 
tence may be helped to grasp the import of the whole 
story, and later he may be trained to distinguish the 
leading thought, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by 
chapter, and then to seize on the great central truth 
of the whole. This is power. 

All great literature is ethical. The central thought, 
the essential heart of the classic, be it short or long, 
that you help your class to find, is ethical. It should, 
if possible, represent something that they are ready to 
receive. It should fit into their lives in a close, inti- 
mate, organic way. 



GETTING THE CENTRAL THOUGHT. 83 

Do not try to teach many selections of this sort in 
one term, lest their essential work of growing into 
the class thought — into their lives — be interrupted. 

Many productions have a most valuable central 
truth that can better be implied, than directly stated. 
To illustrate : — 

Bird Thoughts. 

I lived first in a little house, 

And lived there very well ; 
I thought the world was small and round, 

And made of pale blue shell. 

I lived next in a little nest, 

Nor needed any other ; 
I thought the world was made of straw, 

And brooded by my mother. 

One day I fluttered from the nest, 

To see what I could find, 
I said, " The world is made of leaves, — 

I have been very blind." 

At length I flew beyond the tree, 

Quite fit for grown-up labors, 
I don't know how the world is made, 

And neither do my neighbors. 
{From " Stepping Stones to Literature," Second Reader.) 

A teacher who understands the significance of such 
child questions as, " If you go on and on as far as you 
can on the land, what do you come to then? " " If you 



84 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

go down and down, what do you find at last ? " — the 
teacher who remembers his own childish efforts to con- 
struct an orderly framework for the world in which he 
lived, will make this lesson a means of helping the 
child understand these questions and difficulties. The 
child but follows here the history of the race. He con- 
structs his world in thought and modifies it by subse- 
quent experiences. 

The settings of the poem must themselves be fully 
prepared for in a previous lesson or they will not carry 
thought safely in its movement beyond. Help the 
children in this preparatory lesson to think of the bird 
life within the shell. (Be sure they think -of it as life.) 
When the birdling begins to stir, he finds the enclosing 
shell on all sides. He pecks his way through, to find 
himself in the nest. There he becomes conscious of his 
mother, of the nest, of the little brood that fill it, etc. 
Let the class follow the growing circles of the birdling's 
life until it reaches into the world. 

Now they are ready for the poem. When this has 
been well read let the child find the parallel between 
his own life and that of the bird. At first he knew his 
own home and its inmates only. Then he reached the 
neighborhood and then the school. Now he knows that 
the great round world contains many lands, many cities, 
many peoples, etc., and the stars are worlds beyond. 

We must remember that scientific facts do not neces- 
sarily induce vivid thinking of reality. The child's 
active imagination, regulated by perceptive work over 
concrete material, restrained by apperceptive activity, 
must animate these facts, — unify them, create them 
anew. Suggestions of the way this may be done are 



GETTING THE CENTRAL THOUGHT. 85 

found in Kipling, Ernest Seton Thompson, Miss An- 
drews, and in much simple science work done by teach- 
ers themselves. The reading lesson of this character 
affords opportunity for such work. Out of it the child 
is indeed constructing his world. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

INTENSIVE AND EXTENSIVE READING. 

Literature affords two distinct classes of produc- 
tions : the one condensed, where thought is large in 
proportion to the number of words ; the other diffuse, 
where content is distributed over wide spaces. The 
first must be read through a process of close thinking, 
the second by a rapid grasp of points successively. In 
the first the work is close, analytical, and exhaustive, 
in the second rapid, clear, and comprehensive. We 
have already seen illustrations of the first in " Bird 
Thoughts," Tennyson's "Eagle," and " Herv6 Riel." 
Such texts often express a single central truth, and 
should as a rule lead the reader to a clear general notion, 
as illustrated in " Herve Riel." Tennyson's "Eagle," 
however, contains no such central truth, yet it is an ex- 
cellent illustration of intensive reading. 

Intensive reading asks that there shall be a strong 
grasp of minor thoughts or details, and exercise of 
judgment in getting the full significance of individual 
passages and a clear comprehension of the central ideas 
in relation to these details. Let us look at such a poem 
as Longfellow's " Building of the Ship " as an illustra- 
tion of intensive reading. 

Build me straight, O worthy Master, 
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, 
86 



INTENSIVE AND EXTENSIVE READING. 87 

That shall laugh at all disaster, 

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle ! 

The teacher desires to make this poem a means of 
giving the class a conception of our country as a civil 
and social framework which has been in making during 
the course of our national history ; at the same time he 
desires the class to feel the need of endurance and 
strength in that framework and the importance of wise 
guidance for the ship. 

In preparation, the teacher is careful to see that the 
class have the necessary apperceiving ideas for the 
understanding of the work of ship-building. A few 
facts should be given describing work done at Cramps 
in Philadelphia, in the Fairfax Yards in Glasgow, or in 
some other noted ship-building centre. Have the 
pupils understand something as to the time required to 
build a great warship like the Oregon, the cost, the 
number of men employed, the significance of the archi- 
tect's work, the care with which the " ribs of steel " 
must be wrought, etc. 

In the reading of this poem not so much can be 
gained by a careful study of single expressions as by 
bringing related thoughts to bear so that an intelligent 
interpretation may result, e.g. let the children them- 
selves give a few facts respecting the force of "wave " 
and "whirlwind"; let them decide why the launching is 
so significant. When does a ship really begin to live? 
What is the test of her worth ? Let the children com- 
pare the launching with some other ceremony having a 
similar significance. What must be the feeling of the 
builder who has wrought well? Why? What will 



88 MANUAL OF READING. 

determine the subsequent history of the ship ? This 
history will be seen as influenced by the character of 
building, by the crew and officers of the ship, quite as 
much as by the storms and dangerous rocks she may 
meet. 

Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 

What is the significance to the people when the ship 
of state goes wrong? when it is wrecked? This the 
children can illustrate from their knowledge of general 
history, where they have learned something of the expe- 
rience of subject nations. Be sure that they understand 
from facts drawn from the history of famous ships that 
their greatest dangers come from within. Give them 
Nelson's great motto : — 

We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 

Let the children mention some of our national work- 
men and tell the time when some of these "ribs of 
steel " were shaped. 

In the work of intensive reading much depends on 
selecting texts adapted to the children's stage of devel- 
opment. The treatment too should be adjusted to the 
children ; for instance, the above selection would have 
a significance in eighth grade work at the time when 
the children are studying the civil history of their own 
country (See "Course of Study in History" by Emily J. 
Rice, published by D. C. Heath & Co.) and just at the 



INTENSIVE AND EXTENSIVE READING. 89 

point in the study when they are ready to form a unified 
conception of our national life. In this stage of the 
study patriotic ideals and motives should be strong and 
clear in the children's thought ; this must be so if the 
study of their country's history is to exercise a truly 
educative influence. 

From the above it will be seen that much of the 
interest and consequent power developed in intensive 
reading depends on the wealth of related ideas brought 
to the subject. 

" He who has at any time given himself up con amove 
to any object of human activity understands what con- 
centration means," says Herbart. Intensive reading is 
most effective when teacher and pupils alike can for the 
time lose themselves in the work. At such moments 
the class themselves may be trusted to bring the full 
wealth of their experience to the subject and to exercise 
to the fullest extent judgment and imagination. In 
this way the reading hour carries all into the world 
created by the text itself. The most artistic work is 
always done in such hours of self-forgetful interest. 
The very inflection and tones of the voice become 
adjusted instinctively to the thought. Expression be- 
comes the natural correlate of impression, and all moves 
rhythmically. 

In thoroughly logical selections it is an admirable plan 
for the class to find sometimes the subject or central 
idea of each successive paragraph, thus determining the 
logical series of minor points that lead up to the major. 
To illustrate : in the supposed speech of John Adams 
(see Appendix II.) the paragraphs show the following 
topics : — 



90 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

An unconditional personal approval of the Declara- 
tion. 

Importance of continuing the war. 

Advantages of such a Declaration to the American 
cause. 

Loyalty of the people. 

Effect of the Declaration on the people. 

The personal peril of the signers. 

The endurance of such a Declaration. 

Unconditional personal approval of the Declaration. 

(Pupils should account for the similarity of content 
in the first and last paragraph.) 

A little work done in helping the class to this sort 
of paragraph grasp will greatly increase their power of 
logical thinking in reading, and will lead directly to 
the power of grasping sustained wholes. 

We must remember that we are teaching literature 
in such work, i.e. we are forming habits in reading, 
developing literary taste and insight, and disciplining 
pupils for the great literary masterpieces. 

As we have already observed, intensive and extensive 
reading have grown up from the character of literature 
itself, as well as from the demands for a proper literary 
training. While it is true that power to grasp thought 
intensively is perhaps the rarest reading power, yet it 
should be matched by the power to grasp thought 
rapidly and comprehensively. No one is educated until 
he is able to think well into highly condensed passages, 
nor is he educated until he can read a book, chapter by 
chapter, and grasp the central idea. 

Extensive reading aims to develop the latter power. 
Very much is involved in such extensive reading. Just 



INTENSIVE AND EXTENSIVE READING. 91 

as intensive reading must guard against dropping into 
the tiresome, so must extensive reading guard against 
the danger of discursiveness. 

Power in extensive reading can only develop as the 
pupil gains in power to grasp details rapidly, put them 
into right relation, and deduce from them the important 
points contained in the whole. To hold paragraph 
after paragraph, chapter after chapter in consciousness, 
in such wise that the main thought grows constantly to 
the end, to establish the proper thought sequences so 
that at the end the whole of a sustained selection or 
book is before the mind in its entirety — this is what 
extensive reading should accomplish. This can only 
be done by gaining the central point of each section as 
the reading proceeds. Many minor details drop from 
consciousness while these important subordinates are 
held steadily in mind. Only so can the proper sequence 
of important points be established. To illustrate : — 

In reading the " Snow Queen," by Hans Andersen, 
with a third-year class (see Riverside Literature Series, 
No. 50, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), the teacher would 
desire the children to grasp clearly the following 
points : — 

The character of the mirror. 

The effect on Kay when one of its splinters enters 
his heart. 

Gerda's faith. 

Gerda's helpers. 

How Kay is rescued. 

A class will readily grasp the kernel of the story 
when this point is reached, viz.: the redeeming power 
of Gerda's faith and love. 



92 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

A few sustained texts of this character should be 
read each year. The outcome of the work gives the 
class power in approaching that large class of books of 
fiction and travel that children so much enjoy, and that 
make up so considerable a portion of adult reading. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE PICTURE AND ITS USE. 

If all sharp, clear concepts of sensible objects were 
confined to those with which we have direct sense 
experience, we should be poor indeed. Very much of 
our teaching work is expended in helping children in 
forming ideas of things distant from them in time and 
space. Geography is pushed outward, from the child's 
environment where sense experience has given him his 
stock of apperceiving ideas, to the entire earth, and if 
astronomy aid, beyond this to the universe. In history 
he transcends the time and space limits, and the con- 
cept, at first limited to the society in which he lives, is 
made to include other ages and countries. In the study 
of the life history of any animal or plant he realizes the 
existence of conditions that he cannot directly observe. 

How does the mind secure accurate images of things 
it has never seen ? You answer, By the exercise of the 
imaging power, which uses the concrete material formed 
by sense perception and builds it into various forms, as 
reason and judgment direct. Clear concepts of hill, 
and stream, and miniature plain, of bird and flower, of 
house and village, of human industries, of types of men 
and women, of definite acts and their results, etc., — 
these afford most valuable concrete material. But such 
material should be helpfully supplemented by pictures. 

A psychology class numbering seventy pupils was 

93 



94 MANUAL OF READING. 

once asked to form a clear visual image of a desert 
with pyramids in the foreground. Most of the students 
formed with great readiness accurate images, so that 
questions with respect to color, size, proportion, etc., 
were readily and accurately answered. In determin- 
ing the particular character which the image took the 
majority of the class decided that it had been influenced 
by pictures. The writer is conscious that the pictures 
of Gerome have done very much in modifying and giv- 
ing character to her own images of the desert and of 
desert life. 

Pictures, then, as affording important material in 
teaching, deserve most careful study. And since they 
very properly hold a conspicuous place in our reading 
books, their part in reading work should be carefully 
considered. 

There are two valuable classes of pictures in use 
to-day. The one class aims directly at instruction, the 
other aims to please as well. Both classes are educa- 
tive, but the first educates by imparting facts directly, 
the second by awakening the aesthetic and moral feel- 
ings. Both appeal to judgment, but the first makes 
its strongest appeal to the analytic judgment, the sec- 
ond to the aesthetic and moral judgment. If we look 
at the illustrations accompanying the little primer, the 
text of which is given in the Appendix, we .find that 
most of the pictures are drawings of the bean plant 
made from life. These drawings emphasize now one 
feature of the bean plant, now another. They have a 
single advantage over the object itself ; the class have 
analyzed this object, and since the drawings bring into 
strong prominence now one feature, now another, they 



THE PICTURE AND ITS USE. 95 

help the analytical activity of the observer. Such 
pictures are placed in the book for the direct purpose 
of instructing. 

Suppose, on the other hand, we have such a picture as 
Millet's " Angelus " before us. Here is a picture that 
is much more than a drawing. The artist has done 
more than analyze his subject ; he has a lively feeling 
for it, and to the mind of the sympathetic observer he 
succeeds in imparting something of this feeling. The 
truth which the picture carries is not so easily put into 
words as the first ; it is a vastly more complex thing. 
One turns from it with the same feeling that he 
experiences in closing a book containing one of the 
world's great dramas or epics — the reading is not 
finished, and it cannot soon be finished. 

We have already observed that perceptive activity 
must be active over the first class of pictures in much 
the same way as over the object itself — the perceptive 
activity must be directed to the important features of 
the picture. To illustrate : the teacher who looks 
with her class at a picture of Esquimaux showing their 
huts, their sledges, snowshoes, manner of dress, weap- 
ons, etc., can greatly aid the class in forming more 
exact visual images of these things by seeing that the 
children make accurate observations and comparisons, 
e.g. " try to discover the material from which the hut 
is made." "The average Esquimau is five and one- 
half feet ; one man is standing close by the hut ; try to 
determine its height." "Judging from its external 
appearance, what Avould you expect to be the appear- 
ance of the room or rooms within, as to shape ? Height ? 
Lighting ? " etc. " Determine the height of the entrance." 



96 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

" Why do you think it is so small ? " " Why placed in 
this position ? " etc. The settings of such pictures, 
too, have many facts of value for the child, who must 
depend on them largely for the accuracy of his con- 
cepts. "When the Esquimau emerges from his hut 
what meets his eye? " " I wonder what changes would 
take place in this view from day to day? from season 
to season?" The children will love to think of the 
beautiful flashes of color that sometimes meet the eye 
of the Esquimau child, of the signs of spring that he 
would see and feel, of the way the driving snowstorm 
shuts him in, of his pleasure in welcoming home the 
father returning from the seal hunt, etc. 

It is needless to say that where descriptions accom- 
pany the picture, the picture should be carefully ob- 
served first, since the clear visual images formed from 
these will help the child in the interpretation of the 
description, and give zest and life to its reading. The 
child's own mind should be observed, and his natural 
return to the picture for " another look " seconded by 
the teacher. 

The picture of cathedral, of town, of landscape, or of 
mountain, that is introduced for the purpose of giving 
the child necessary concrete material for forming accu- 
rate concepts, should be treated in much the same way. 
In showing a picture of Mont Blanc, for example, the 
children should be asked not only to note the character 
of the slopes, to select the accessible parts, to estimate 
the climb that these suggest — but he should accurately 
note every change of vegetation and life that a good 
photograph presents, and account for these. A little 
work of this kind greatly enhances the interest of the 



THE PICTURE AND ITS USE. 97 

reading lesson, and is invaluable in giving life and 
reality to the text so illumined. 

Many of the art pictures finding their way into our 
reading books belong to the second class referred to 
above. Although they often carry many facts with 
them that are of great value in the direct work of help- 
ing the child to accurate concepts, yet their real aim is 
never the mere imparting of facts. Breton's " Song of 
the Lark" is a picture of this kind, as are many of 
Lerolle's and nearly all of Millet's. The peasant girl 
in the "Song of the Lark" in dress, movement, and 
expression is a picture from life. 

The presentation of such pictures must be largely 
modified by the character of the picture itself, and by 
its immediate relation to the lesson which it is meant 
to illumine. /There are times when a simple question 
that carries the children to the central thought of the 
whole and leaves long pauses in which the picture itself 
can speak, is best of all. To illustrate in the above, the 
simple question, " Where is the song ? " will carry the 
children far toward a true appreciation of the whole. 
For the artist tells them that the song is not merely in 
the air but in the heart of the girl. A common sym- 
pathy that unites all with each other and with the 
picture itself is the best means of approaching such 
a work of art. In such moments the most truly 
educative work is done. . A scrap of poetry may be 
suggested, like Longfellow's " Arrow and Song," or 
there may be a projection of the thought of all into 
the peasant life represented, so that its wholesome 
sweetness penetrates the thought. In such moments 
aesthetic and moral aspects of the picture assert them- 



98 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

selves, and it is fortunate indeed when they follow the 
merely perceptive activity which they should complete. 

Pictures of this sort should if possible be placed in 
the room for a few days, where th*ey do their own silent 
teaching, and do it most effectively. Children should 
be helped to an understanding of how such pictures 
are made. Stories and incidents from the lives of the 
artists themselves will often add very much to the edu- 
cative value of the picture. That most difficult and 
important side of education which develops right feel- 
ing, awakens and conserves the better desires, stimu- 
lates the imagination which it controls and purifies, 
is most effectively furthered by such pictures. The 
teacher who is carefully making her collection of pho- 
tographs and prints to enrich the reading hour is 
employing one of the most efficient means of making 
the children true readers. 

We have said that the value of pictures to children 
may be greatly enhanced by simple stories from the 
lives of the artists. The children who are enjoying 
Giotto's tower should be helped not merely to an appre- 
ciation of its architectural beauty and a conception of 
the lovely pictures of Florence framed in by its exqui- 
site windows, but they will love to connect with this 
noble tower the simple story of the shepherd boy. 
Michael Angelo's David, always loved by the children, 
should be related not merely to the beautiful Bible 
narrative from whence it was drawn, but the children 
should associate with it the story of its making out 
of the great block of dust-covered marble, which was 
so illy shaped that no artist until Angelo was found to 
form it into a great statue. This is a picture for the 



THE PICTURE AND ITS USE. 99 

adolescent, and the whole history of its making is in 
striking harmony with its subject, in its power to inspire 
adolescent ideals. 

There are many great pictures with which there is 
associated some story that affords a key to the under- 
standing of the work itself. This is illustrated in 
Raphael's "St. Margaret," Guido Reni's " Aurora," 
Botticelli's " Tobias and the Angel," and many others. 
The telling of these stories, clearly, simply, and at the 
moment when the child is ready to make a real approach 
to the picture, is an important feature in its proper 
presentation. 

Mrs. Jameson's "Memoirs of Italian Artists" and 
her " Sacred and Legendary Art " afford a storehouse 
whence teachers may draw excellent material for such 
work. Most stories of this sort need to be adapted to 
the needs of the children. The character of the class 
itself must determine the amount and character of ma- 
terial selected. There are lives of artists that have in 
them little to educate any class. Fortunately, however, 
the lives of the greatest masters teem with material 
that affords true conceptions of the artist's devotion 
to his work, and beautiful, true glimpses of the condi- 
tions under which that work was done. 

To summarize : — 

(1) We depend on the imaging power of the child 

for vivid and accurate concrete concepts. 

(2) These concepts are necessary to intelligent read- 

ing. 

(3) The picture may be made a means of giving us 

such concepts. 

LofC. 



100 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

(4) The picture should be accurately perceived and 

apperceived. 

(5) The treatment of the picture must be modified 

by the character of the picture itself, and by 
its relation to the work in hand. 

(6) There should be associated with pictures care- 

fully selected stories from the lives of the 
artists, or narrations which serve as a key to 
the understanding of the pictures. 



XVI. 

THE CHILD AND THE BOOK. 

A class of young teachers were recently asked to 
recall their own experiences in learning to read. Out 
of the fifty, nineteen had been taught by the alphabet 
method, although it had been abandoned in every good 
school before many of them were born ; eleven had 
been taught by the word method, and as many more 
by the sentence method ; six had taught themselves to 
read, and in some cases had shown much ingenuity m 
doing so. The striking feature of this report was the 
uniform agreement of all as to the feeling toward 
books awakened by this early work. All agreed that 
they became indifferent to the reading books, if they 
did not positively dislike them, associating with them 
the idea of drudgery. Most of them had learned to 
love other books. 

When does a child begin to dislike his reading book t 
What are the conditions that induce such a dislike ? 
Has not one reason been discovered by this report? 
The child associates with these books the idea of 
drudgery, and probably with just cause. The pleas- 
urable element in his reading work has, on the whole, 
been a minimum. With the book there entered forced 
attention, reluctant acquiescence, tiresome repetitions, 
— the whole a weary grind. 

For the child to become conscious of his work as 

101 



102 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

drudgery is from every standpoint an evil. When he 
awakens to the fact that he is going to the book be- 
cause he is told, not because the book invites, the 
chances of arousing a spontaneous interest are greatly 
lessened, and much has been lost. 

How does the child act over the book when he fol- 
lows the invitation that it gives ? He reads and enjoys 
some one thing until satisfied ; when he returns to the 
book he reads something else. He turns for the second 
and third time to the stories that he likes, and he goes 
through all and lingers longest where pastures are most 
inviting. His procedure is similar to that of an adult, 
and why should it not be ? What would be the effect 
on the adult mind if it were denied the right to this 
natural procedure in reading ? 

Another cause of drudgery may lie in the character 
of the book itself. The returns which a child secures 
from his activity over the book are often very meagre 
in comparison with the labor expended. It is the pro- 
ductive activity that gives the truest pleasure. This 
fact holds good for the child as well as for the adult. 
The productive side of reading activity lies in the idea- 
tional process. Of the child more cannot be demanded 
than of the adult. He must get something that he 
wants from a labor that is relatively greater than that 
of the adult, or he is dissatisfied. The ideational activ- 
ity must have overcome the consciousness of perceptive 
effort over the words or the child is drudging, and he 
will soon discover it. He receives returns for his work 
in the content ; if it is not there, he is poorly paid, and 
soon becomes an unwilling laborer. 

We must seriously and honestly ask ourselves what 



THE CHILD AND THE BOOK. 103 

the child would like to read about, not what we would 
like to have him like to read about, before we shall al- 
together release him from the sense of drudgery. A 
charming home-made reading book was discovered in 
the hands of a little girl a few months since. It was 
teaching her to read, and she loved it dearly. It was 
made up of funny little situations of the Mother Goose 
type written in rhyme and accompanied by drawings. 
The element of wonder is strong in the child, and his 
love for the fairy tale persists for many years. How 
have our reading books answered this demand in the 
child's nature? 

If we have neglected the child's interest in making 
our children's books, we have equally neglected his 
stock of apperceiving ideas. Probably no one has 
given serious thought to the immense difficulty a child 
meets in the apperception of the average reading book. 
To the child bred in the large city, many a reading 
book must appear dull and uninteresting. 

An examination of a first reader shows the following 
list of titles : The Moth, The Sheep, The Cow, The 
Horse, The Bee, The Hen, The Duck, The Rabbit, The 
Fish, The Snail, The Cat, The Squirrel, The Spider. 
Place over against this list the following facts reported 
from the children of Boston of school age : 54 per cent 
did not know the sheep, 18.5 per cent did not know the 
cow, 52 per cent did not know the bee, 19 per cent did 
know the hen. Out of 150 boys and girls more than 
50 per cent did not know the squirrel, and more than 
70 per cent did not know the snail. (See report of G. 
Stanley Hall in "Pedagogical Seminary," No. I., Vol. 
I. on " The Contents of Children's Minds on entering 



104 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

School.") That this condition is not confined to our 
very large cities is shown in a recent report of Princi- 
pal Drum of Syracuse, N.Y. Among the children in 
his school ranging in age from seven to fifteen years, 
12.6 per cent did not know the squirrel, 7.5 per cent 
did not know the frog, 46.1 per cent did not know 
growing wheat, and 35 per cent did not know the crow. 
By many a city child a story like Kipling's " White 
Seal " could be more readily understood than a story 
about a sheep. The zoological garden is more likely to 
have acquainted him with the former, and moreover the 
story carries its own setting so truly that it is much 
better calculated to develop true concepts of the animal 
in its environment than is the average scientific descrip- 
tion. 

When we remember that the child's interest is de- 
pendent on the number and character of concepts 
recalled by the words, we must conclude that the child 
and the object must be brought together in some whole- 
some way, or we must cease to describe these objects in 
his books. For it is certain that the reading book alone 
can never teach the child what he has not apperceiving 
ideas to grasp. Moreover, such vague and senseless 
teaching stultifies the mind and begins the work of 
intellectual dependence. 

It should be noted in this connection that the ani- 
mals introduced in the fable or the fairy story cannot be 
properly included in this list, since they are there merely 
as lay figures to point to something else. They are not 
directly the subjects of thought, nor are they represented 
in any but a personified way, and this the child instinc- 
tively appreciates. 



THE CHILD AND THE BOOK. 105 

The child's book must be made for him, and he him- 
self must determine what it shall be. Most children's 
books must be transformed in time, through the study 
of children themselves. It may be questioned if they 
themselves may not help to make them. 

Apperceptive ideas modify perceptive activity, not 
only directing it, but enriching and stimulating it. 
The man who has grown familiar with the history of 
our Civil War looks into the face of Lincoln and sees 
there lines and expressions that escape another who 
lacks these apperceiving concepts. If you want Lin- 
coln's face to look beautiful to the children, tell them 
incidents that speak of his great heart of love, of his 
long patience, of his untiring patriotism, of his gentle- 
ness and sympathy. 

An adult looks at pictures and reads books with a 
stock of interpreting ideas that largely determine his 
view. How would he look at these things without 
these ideas ? Undoubtedly, most of the pictures would 
be uninteresting, the books insipid. The child often 
looks at things without apperceiving ideas, but has he 
no power to take their place ? 

The adult perceives and apperceives, the child per- 
ceives and fancies. He clothes his perceptions with his 
happy active imagination. What he gets from this 
activity we do not clearly know, but we may be certain 
that it is something that is animate and attractive to 
himself. Is it strange that he does not like our books 
that leave this lovely atmosphere of life and color out ? 
that force him out of his native atmosphere and ask him 
to see what he has not yet grown to understand ? that 
forget that God himself has ordained that the child 



106 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

should think in this way and that we thus devise in vain 
another mode of thought for him ? 

Only a living teacher, who fully realizes the enormous 
difficulties that the children meet when they begin the 
work of reading from books, may be trusted to secure 
them from a sense of drudgery with its accompanying 
evils. 

Pleasure in effort is measured by the quality of 
returns as well as by their quantity. Fortunately, in 
the . first attempt to master the book, there is a feeling 
on the child's part of something new to be overcome. 
To work successfully is to increase this just sense of 
something won. Successful perceptive activity over the 
words there must be, or the result is not true. Teach 
the child to know instantly the words that he knows, 
and to know as quickly the stranger as a stranger. 
Words not known must not be slid over, or the child 
will soon become weary of work done poorly. The 
teacher who accepts no whispered story (sentence) from 
the board or book that is not accurately reported is 
developing this sense of honest self-respect that should 
characterize every worker. Anticipate the child's 
difficulty, provide for the overcoming of it so that it 
will seem like overcoming to him when he meets it, 
and he will not feel like a drudge. But the child can- 
not carry the sense of slipshod work with a light heart 
any more than can an adult. It will help to make him 
feel himself a bungling workman, and a bungling work- 
man who is kept to his task is indeed a drudge. 

Let delightful hours of companionship grow up be- 
tween the teacher and the class over the reading books. 
Let the teacher add the wealth of his own interest to 



THE CHILD AND THE BOOK. 107 

the subject-matter in such wise that the child reads at 
every step to gain new pleasure in new insight. 

In a little monograph on reading, G. Stanley Hall 
tells us how Mrs. John Wesley dressed her children in 
their best clothes one morning and taught them the 
alphabet in that one day. Dr. Hall complains with 
Colonel Parker, that we make the child's burden in 
large part by our own way of regarding his Avork as a 
task. 

One of the keenest intellectual pleasures, as it is one 
of the most stimulating, is the sense of overcoming. 
Work should be so spontaneous as to be pleasurable in 
the main, just because it is happy self-expression. But 
children, even when very young, should know the hap- 
piness that comes from doing something that has cost 
real effort. 

One of the strongest points in favor of teaching chil- 
dren phonics is that it helps them to help themselves, 
that it gives them a means of securing the results of 
independent effort. 

The child's three or four years in the primary school 
ought to be of greater worth than any period of equal 
length which follows. There is no other period when 
it is more important for him to do his best. He has 
work to do then, and he should be helped to do it cheer- 
fully, intelligibly, successfully. We would not make 
him a drudge, but we would if we could, make him love 
to work in such wise that he goes home to meet his 
father and mother with a clear sense of having done 
his part in the environment to which he has been in- 
trusted. The meaning of work, the true meaning of 
activity, of service, should be taught in the primary 



108 MANUAL OF READING. 

department. No child should go out from it who has 
not learned to work, who has not learned to respect 
himself more because he works, who has not learned to 
put forth effort unflinchingly when that effort is re- 
quired, and who has not learned the pure pleasure of 
having done his "level best." 

This means the generation of an interest so sustained 
as to induce a desire for doing one's part — as to stimu- 
late will to do it. Children should always be dealt with 
truthfully. They should never be left to work without 
true motives. Let them understand, as far as may be, 
the purpose of the work in general, as well as the aim 
of the general lesson procedure in particular. A child 
should be sometimes stimulated by the simple fact that 
there is a bit of hard work before him in the reading 
lesson. Let him put forth his best effort, let him feel 
the challenge that the work makes, let him climb — but 
be sure that he reaches the upper air and gets the exhil- 
arating effects of his efforts. At such moments teachers 
must be true comrades — not to praise or cheaply com- 
mend, but to simply stand by, to be alert, to see that the 
activity take the right direction, and that at last the 
worker receive some touch of responsive gladness when 
the battle is won. The reading lesson with its besetting 
difficulties gives abundant opportunity for such work. 
Let the child learn in these hard places to be a con- 
queror, and he will never be a drudge. Let us learn 
that lectures on good behavior are not required when 
children work thus. They are gaining moral fibre as 
well as intellectual poise through such work. 

The pleasurable anticipation that Mrs. Wesley's chil- 
dren brought to the work of learning the alphabet 



THE CHILD AND THE BOOK. 109 

probably made the activity over it a stimulating recre- 
ation. Concentration was increased, and results were 
multiplied. Add the element of song to the work of 
mastering the first reading book, and you will have no 
need to fear the entrance of the spirit of drudgery. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE READING HABIT. 

Reading has been justly styled the "key to culture." 
The school has in the past been so absorbed in devolv- 
ing power in pronouncing words or in helping children 
to read orally, that it has forgotten the great end of 
reading proper. For with the key must be given 
power to use it and a habit of using it. 

The conspicuous failure in the teaching of reading in 
the past has been due to this grievous error. It was 
not perceived that a development of a taste for reading, 
an interest in the content of the thing read, is the 
great fact in making a reader, as it is the source of the 
stimulating influences that make the overcoming of 
formal difficulties a comparatively easy matter. There 
can be no doubt but that very much of the labor spent 
in the school over the reading lesson is in vain. More 
than this, there can be no doubt that the work is fre- 
quently mischievous, inducing, as it often does, wrong 
habits and a distaste for books. 

To make our children readers we must induce a love 
of books, and we must cease to feel that a child must 
do all of his reading aloud. It is doubtful if reading 
should be begun in the first year at all, but when it is 
begun it should be begun heartily. In the very first 
year of its beginning a keen interest in books should be 
developed, and several books should be read in that year. 

110 



THE BEADING HABIT. Ill 

There is need of simple primers for little children 
written on subjects in which they are interested, where 
the whole book represents continuity of thought. 

Every schoolroom should have its own little collec- 
tion of choice books adapted to the stage of develop- 
ment of the children, and in the periods of leisure before 
school, after school, at the rainy day recess, or in the 
leisure moments of finished lessons, the children should 
be allowed to use these books freely. We should re- 
member that the average home represented by the chil- 
dren in the public schools has a meagre stock of best 
books for children ; and we should remember, too, that 
the public library does not as a rule provide for the 
needs of young children, nor does it attempt to form 
the taste of any child. 

He who gives a child power to get thought by means 
of printed characters has put into his possession a 
means, which, if it be properly used, may educate him; 
but he who has done this, and in addition has induced 
the love for good literature, has educated him. It has 
been clearly proven that young children like good pic- 
tures best. It is not until the taste has become per- 
verted that pleasure is gained from the tawdry and the 
overdone. This is as true with books as with pictures. 
Many an adult of pure literary instinct finds pleasure 
in Miss Andrews' books, in Grimms' and Andersen's 
" Fairy Tales," in " Robinson Crusoe," in Kipling's 
" Jungle Books," in Charles Kingsley's " Water Ba- 
bies," and children with unspoiled taste like these books 
best. We must remember here, as in art, that the all- 
important thing is for the school to create a love for 
such books before the taste has become vitiated. 



112 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

The range of true classics widens with the child's 
growing power and interest. Begin as soon as possible 
to put whole texts of best things in literature into the 
reading class. Our reading books, made up of frag- 
ments, have helped to develop a taste for scrappy read- 
ing, j ust as they have signally failed to awaken genuine 
interest in good literature. 

It is noticeable in literature work with children that 
they invariably prefer the classic form of the story to 
the text that has been written especially for them. 
Classes like to read " Hiawatha" from the original text 
best ; they listen with keener pleasure to a passage 
from the " Iliad " or " Odyssey " in Bryant's translation 
than to some prose form written for boys and girls. 
This suggests that we do not need to adapt the classics 
to the children, because the children are adapted to the 
classics. 

But one can look at good pictures superficially and 
grow into a sentimentalist ; so one may learn to play 
with good literature. Children must be helped to a 
development of power in reading intensively. As a 
rule, the longer the class shows a desire to linger over 
the best things, — the more intensively it reads them, — 
the better the work. A few things should be read in 
this way every year, beginning with the fable or fairy 
tale in the first year, where children are helped to grasp 
the central ethical truth, and ending only with the 
power to grasp and trace the development of the great 
ethical content of one of Shakespeare's best dramas. 
Power to read good books means as a rule inclination 
toward good books. The thorough reading of a few 
classics will go very far toward making it impossible for 



THE READING HABIT. 113 

the child to take pleasure in the merely sensational. 
To give him the power of strong grasp of these best 
things is to give him genuine pleasure in them and to 
make him at the same time conscious of the emptiness 
of tawdry books. 

The reading habit is greatly furthered by helping 
children to find their book friends, and then helping 
them to be true to these friends. There are times 
when the rapid continuous reading of a text with a 
firm mental grasp on the whole is most commend- 
able, but he only is a perfectly good reader who has 
found an author deep enough to be lingered with 
and returned to again and again. Children have 
their favorite songs and stories ; let the teacher 
find these and help further the tendency to read the 
poem, that "we have been so happy over," again and 
yet again. Mental fibre develops with such work, 
and constancy is a first condition in moral develop- 
ment. 

Very much of literature consists in books that ac- 
quaint us with other environments and other ages. 
The power of vivid realization should be systemati- 
cally cultivated. This is not merely an important 
means of helping children to the content of books, but 
such imaging activity gives products that are clear cut, 
complete, connected, and so better remembered. Such 
knowledge is an active, living possession, a treasure, 
and an increasing pleasure to its possessor. Pictures 
and concrete material of every sort should be made to 
aid in giving children proper beginnings. Judgment 
should be appealed to, and every means employed to 
induce regulated and effective work in imagination. 



114 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

Perceptive activity of some sort should precede any 
attempt to visualize that which is distant. A child 
who is familiar with the aquarium in Central Park, and 
who has seen the ocean, will follow Kipling's story of 
the " White Seal " ; these experiences providing him 
with the proper elements for imaging. The teacher 
who is reading Longfellow's " Golden Legend " with 
the grammar grade should, by means of pictures and 
descriptions, help the children to live through every 
stage of the journey from Germany into Italy. Such 
work induces the habit of regulated imagination. 
Such work means life for teacher and pupils alike. 
A common interest, a comradeship in pleasure, grows 
up between them unconsciously, and then the hap- 
piest conditions of growth enter, and the way becomes 
delightful. 

We must not try to thrust our own reading habits, 
our way of looking at books, upon our classes. The 
treatment, as well as the choice of material, must be 
determined in large part by the class itself. The 
pupils who are reading Csesar's " Gallic Wars " in 
Latin may find great pleasure in Shakespeare's " Julius 
Csesar," for the purpose of realizing the great closing 
drama in his life. Or they may read comparatively, to 
see how Shakespeare's representation of Csesar com- 
pares with that unconscious exhibition of his own char- 
acter shown throughout the Commentaries. Again, it 
may be read with the class in civics from the political 
standpoint, or it may make a profitable study for a class 
from a purely ethical point of view. 

Many of us have read the same book at several 
times in our lives, and each time from a new view- 



THE HEADING HABIT. 115 

point. Indeed, the old volumes of Homer and Dante 
and Shakespeare are very good landmarks from which 
to measure our own development. New experiences, 
new ideas, new conceptions of life, renew these books ; 
we apperceive them anew. Ask yourself what the 
child brings to the book before you determine how 
you will present it to him. 

" Habit enfeebles all passive impressions and develops 
all active operations," says Compayre. In its simple, 
normal course, habit, in order to perpetuate itself in 
the most fortunate way, must be friendly to the organ- 
ism, serviceable to the essential life. To determine 
on the necessary, vigorous, healthful reactions, and to 
plant these in the life of the pupil so that the most for- 
tunate self-expression results, is an all-important work 
in education. 

The teacher who has successfully helped a child to 
work with the relation of ideas by means of printed 
words has secured a vital reaction that has in it the 
power of growing into a living habit. Mental func- 
tioning of this sort is productive ; it creates its own 
reactions, it generates healthful resultant stimulations, 
hence it has power of intensive, healthful self-perpetu- 
ation. 

If we look for the cause of this, we find that the 
mind in this work of relating concepts is finding its 
own natural and wholesome activity. The rhythmical 
freedom and movement of this activity is familiar to 
us as interest. To that which interests us, we return 
again and again. We may put it in another way, and 
say that the child has gained something, that his activ- 
ity is productive, for the " I have an idea " is, after all, 



116 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

the expression of a mental acquisition. It is therefore 
pleasurably stimulating. 

The habit imposed from without lacks tenacity. 
That which is purely artificial takes but feeble hold. 
We have need to be grateful indeed for this great 
law of life, as potent in the world of mind as in the 
physical world. Because of it the sins of omission and 
commission, that have filled our schools with grievous 
mistakes and produced results that reproach us, have 
not utterly destroyed the lives that they have crippled. 
The child has preserved himself from the artificiality 
of much of the teaching work that has but stultified 
his mind, by afterward sloughing off the wretched 
psychical habits that it had induced. No one can 
expect for a moment to make a child a reader of words 
only, and keep him a reader. Be sure he will not 
trouble himself with such make-believe activity when 
once he is free to choose for himself. 

In the discussion of the reading habit we must never 
for an instant lose sight of the fact that it rests on this 
foundation. The habit has grown into life and found 
its roots when this initial power has developed into a 
systematic healthful activity. The teacher who helps 
the child to this power of grasping thought has induced 
the potential conditions that may yet go astray. Not 
until the child has developed a selective interest in 
books of a wholesome sort, is the reading habit safely 
established. For these potential conditions may be 
turned from a normal course ; the child may learn to 
take poisonous food and like the taste of it. Bad 
literature may become agreeable. 

Plainly the school has two great things to do in 



THE READING HABIT. 117 

teaching reading in a truly educative way. It must 
by the use of right method induce power in grasping 
thought, and it must by the development of a dis- 
criminating taste make it possible for that power to 
perpetuate itself healthfully. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION. 

The first condition of making profitable the reading 
lessons, drawn from science, lies in the teacher herself. 
The first step toward successful work is made by the 
teacher in her own study of material. 

This science work can in no wise be done from books 
alone. The teacher without eyes will inevitably have a 
class that do not see. Her own eyes must be open, and 
her interest active, in the field where she would work 
successfully with her class. 

The laws for the development of her powers of 
observation are precisely those that govern her class. 
She must do actual work on the material itself ; she 
must learn to do her work thoroughly, exactly. Let 
her observe, draw, describe. If she can do this in a 
disinterested way, for the love of the work, so much 
the better ; interest will then be spontaneous, and spon- 
taneous interest possesses a strong contagious quality. 

Favorite haunts are known to lovers only. Flowers 
blossom, birds build, plants grow, living creatures thrive 
for him who cares for them. The teacher who learns 
to care for nature through her own study will find it 
growing into her life as a saving power. No class of 
workers needs strong, healthful, intellectual stimulation 
more than teachers. A teacher should be an enthusi- 
astic student, not merely that he may develop a respon- 

118 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION. 119 

sive enthusiasm in his pupils, but for his own sake. 
The demands on the vital life of the teacher are very 
great, and he must reenforce himself constantly in a 
hearty, wholesome recreation, or wear exceeds repair, 
and the essential element of spontaneity begins to 
decline. 

Let teachers make their own observations, using 
books for direction and confirmation. Let them make 
their own drawings, their own descriptions. Carry 
these rules into teaching : help the children to see 
accurately and to express with exactness and originality 
what they see, by means of drawing as well as descrip- 
tion. Let the greatest possible wealth of association, 
consistent with orderly progress, gather around the 
work, and* let the whole be penetrated by a wholesome 
interest. 

It is one of the beautiful laws of compensation that 
the work we do in an effort toward better service 
enriches us in turn tenfold. Every hour spent in keep- 
ing children after school could be exchanged for hours 
by the brookside, in the park, in the haunts where 
children love to go, and where wise grown folk love 
to be. Every bit of strong, positive work makes it 
possible to drop some negative, oppressive condition 
that is hurtful to teacher and pupil alike. 

" One thing that happened in that first field lesson," 
said an intelligent Minneapolis lady, "was this — the 
children discovered the teacher ! They had not sus- 
pected until that day that she was human ! " 

It is true that the teacher must mediate between the 
child and the book, but it is twice true of the science 
book. No science reader can be written for children 



120 MANUAL OF READING. 

that does not presuppose much preliminary work on 
the part of the teacher. The reading lesson is not the 
science lesson, and there should be no attempt to make 
it such. Bright, enthusiastic work in nature study 
should generate the interest — lead the way — and the 
reading should follow. It is impossible for any one but 
the teacher to write a perfect nature reader for any par- 
ticular class. If it seems desirable for the class to use the 
ready-made reader, they must be prepared for it. 

Since the material in reading work introduces the 
child into the two great worlds of humanity and science, 
the teacher herself must live in both. She must be as 
sympathetic a comrade in the first as in the second. 
Indeed, the former field requires the clearer eye. 

In the treatment of historic and literary material the 
teacher begins the great work of interpreting the world 
of humanity for the child. For she is not merely estab- 
lishing historic and literary sequences, she is building 
up a framework of knowledge into which the child's 
own life must be consciously set later when he awakens 
to the fact that he himself is a part of this world of 
humanity. The teacher's method of doing his work on 
the historic-literary side will determine much with re- 
spect to his pupil's attitude toward life. It will be a 
force to help or hinder the pupil in putting himself 
into right relation to life on all sides. 

Much work must be done before the child is pre- 
pared with clear, vigorous, true, well-articulated ideas 
respecting life as it exhibits itself in the physical world. 
More work must be done before he comprehends intelli- 
gently the world of humanity to which he belongs. 

When the period of adolescence is reached, and the 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION. 121 

child awakens to a new consciousness of social and 
ethical laws and their operation in his own life, when 
the character of the future man begins to take definite 
form, then the ideas of life which the school has been 
forming are forces to determine and shape the future. 

Reading work which passes over into literature that 
never ceases to be an important feature in the lives of 
intelligent men and women will do much in shaping 
such ideas. The child finding a teacher who loves 
great literature, who enjoys good art, and who at the 
same time possesses an intelligent social sympathy is 
indeed fortunate. He has found a friend, a comrade, 
a leader, who will reveal to him the world of which he 
is unconscious, in a way to inform the intellect, stimu- 
late noble desires, and set forces at work that are potent 
in the formation of living character. 

Finally, it must be frankly confessed that there are 
many unsolved problems connected with the teaching 
of reading. Many of these can be solved by teachers 
only. The successful solution of the reading problem 
must come from the children themselves. Those who 
are nearest to them are in the place of vantage in find- 
ing this solution. Every day children are telling their 
teachers in the reading class by undoubted signs things 
that puzzle the wise. 

The following are some of the questions that we 
must answer from our observation of children : — 

(1) What phases of plant life interest the child 

most ? 

(2) To what extent does the care of plants enhance 

the child's interest in them ? 



122 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

(3) What is the child's way of looking at a plant or 

an animal, or at nature in general? Is his 
perceptive activity like the adult's, or is it 
more largely mixed with fancy ? 

(4) What is the effect on the child of doing severely 

exact science work according to the adult 
standard ? Would it not be more scientific 
to ask him to do it well in the child's way ? 

(5) What is the exact order of the difficulties, 

major and minor, that a child must meet in 
mastering reading through the first primer ? 

(6) What are the effects of phonics on the child's 

work in the first grade, in the second grade, 
in the fourth grade ? 

(7) Does the use of phonics interfere with the habit 

of quickly recognizing the word as a whole ? 

(8) What other means of sharpening auditory per- 

ceptions can you devise ? 

(9) To what extent do children do work in the 

silent pronunciation of words as they read ? 

(10) Does this tendency increase or decrease with 

concentration ? What are the characteristics 
of the mental activity when the child becomes 
thoroughly interested ? 

(11) To what extent does the stimulating effect of 

a perfectly rhythmic and successful ideational 
activity react on the visualizing process over 
words ? 

(12) Does the child learn the words more easily 

when he is interested ? More unconsciously ? 
Does the thinking process tend to make us 
work with sentence wholes, or with words 
separately ? 



THE TEACHER^ PREPARATION. 123 

As the reading process becomes more and 
more successful, does the "sentence sense" 
increase or decrease ? 

(13) How may we develop this " sentence sense " in 

the child ? 

(14) Under what condition does the child return 

to the word, "letting go" of the thought 
entirely ? 

What is the effect of this on the emotional 
tone ? On results in work ? On the reading 
habit? 

(15) Try simplifying a fairy tale and make a read- 

ing lesson of it : watch the results narrowly. 
Try Mother Goose with your first grade : 
watch the results. Distinguish between a 
love of novelty and a genuine growing inter- 
est in the subject itself. Is there anything in 
common between the two ? 

(16) Analyze the most successful devices you have 

used in your reading work and determine 
what element in the device makes it effective. 
Try to have the first oral reading grow spon- 
taneously from the child's desire for expres- 
sion, and note the character of the expression. 
Try to make oral reading a means of ex- 
pression merely, a means of putting the child 
into a closer social and sympathetic relation 
with others, watch the result in the child's 
general attitude toward the subject. If a 
reading book were to be made just for the 
child alone, what would it be like ? 

(17) As you have opportunity of watching children 



124 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

who have been variously taught, try to de- 
termine exactly the effects of the various 
methods. 

Why do your children spell poorly ? Why 
do they spell well ? 

(18) To what extent does the rate of procedure 

effect concentration? 

(19) Try to find the very best of which your pupils 

are capable along various lines : - • 

Rapid, accurate visual perception. 
Rapid, accurate auditory perceptions. 
Power to grasp the sentence as a whole. 
Power to think by means of printed sentences. 
Power to sustain concentration. 

What is the effect on "the children them- 
selves of letting them drop below this best 
possible ? 

(20) What is the effect on the child of believing 

that the thing to be done is hard before he 
begins to do it ? 

The teacher who has observed these and 
kindred problems for herself, reaching care- 
fully thought out conclusions and adjusting 
the work at every step to the needs of her 
class, will have taught herself how to teach 
reading. 



APPENDIX I. 

THE LIFE OF A BEAN.i 
I. THE BABY BEAN IN BED. 

I AM a little baby bean. 

I am white. 

I am round and smooth. 

Little Nell put me in bed. 

My bed is the earth. 

I like the soft, warm earth. 

It is my blanket. 

My blanket- covers me all up. 

The sun loves me. 

He makes my bed warm. 

The rain loves me. 

It gives me water to drink. 

I love the good rain. 

Little Nell loves me. 

I love little Nell. 

I shall go to sleep now. 

The sun and the rain will wake me. 

Do you know what I shall do then? 

H. HOW THE BABY BEAN WOKE. 

Good morning, Nell. 
Have you come to see me ? 

1 Published by D. C. Heath & Co. Copyright, 1901, by D. C. Heath & Co. 

125 



126 MANUAL OF READING. 

You put me to sleep under the blanket. 

The sun woke me. 

See, I have grown ! 

The sun and the rain made me grow. 

My coat is torn, I have grown so large ! 

Do you see my leaves, Nell ? 

Why are your leaves folded, little bean ? 

They were folded in the cotyledons. 

Do you know why I bend my head? 

I push with my back. 

Then my head is not hurt. 

The cotyledons are open. 

I put my head out of the cotyledons. 

I put my feet into the ground. 

You call my feet roots. 

Soon I shall lift my head and look at the sun. 

III. HOW THE LITTLE BEAN GREW. 

Where is my little bean ? 

Here I am, Nell. 

Don't you know me ? 

I don't see you, little bean. 

I have grown so large ! 

That is why you don't know me. 

Oh, now I know you, little bean I 

Do you see my coat, Nell ? 

No, where is your coat, little bean ? 

I have grown too large for my coat. 

I saw it was torn, little bean. 

See how tall I am, Nell ! 

I don't bend now. 






APPENDIX I. 127 

How high you hold your head, little bean. 

Yes, I like to see the sun. 

Your cotyledons have grown small. 

You know what my cotyledons are for, Nell ? 

I keep my food in my cotyledons. 

Is that why they grow smaller, little bean ? 

Yes, I am using the food. 

Your leaves are not folded now, little bean. 

They have grown, Nell. 

My feet have grown, too. 

IV. WHAT THE ROOT SAID. 

I was a little root. 

Now I am large and strong ! 

I am in the ground. 

I hold the plant. 

The wind cannot pull me up. 

Do you see how many parts I have ? 

I call these parts rootlets. 

My rootlets are very strong. 

My rootlets are crooked. 

I can hold firmly. 

My rootlets help me hold. 

See, how many little threads my rootlets have ! 

These little threads are root hairs. 

These little root hairs help to make me strong. 

V. THE BEAN STEM'S WORK. 

I am long and slender. 
I am smooth. 
I am like a tube. 



128 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

I am called the stem. 

I have work to do. 

I hold the leaves. 

I hold the flowers too. 

I keep the leaves apart. 

I hold the leaves to the sun. 

The leaves need the sun. 

I have more work still to do. 

I carry food to the leaves and flowers. 

You must have food to grow, little Nell. 

The leaves and flowers must have food too. 

The food comes from the roots. 

It goes to the leaves and flowers. 

It passes through me. 

I am happy in my work. 

I must do it well. 

Then the leaves and flowers will grow strong. 

Don't you think a bean stem has much to do ? 

What can you do, Nell ? 

VI. WHAT THE LEAVES SAID. 

Good morning, Nell ! 

We are not baby leaves now. 

We are not folded up now. 

See, how we are spread out ! 

Do you like our new dresses ? 

Are they not a pretty color ? 

The good sun helps to make us this pretty color. 

What do you think we do all day ? 

Do you see the dear little bud where we meet the stem ? 

We take good care of it. 



APPENDIX I. 129 

It never gets cold. 

At night we bend over the bud to keep it warm. 

When morning comes, the little bud says, 

" Thank you, dear leaves." 
Then we spread ourselves out to the sun. 

There are three of us. 

We all sit on one long stem. 

We are folded together in the bud. 

We came out of the bud together. 

We are little sister leaves. 

You should see us dance in the wind. 

We love the wind. 

We love the rain too. 

We bathe in the rain. 

Then the sun warms us. 

All day long we work together. 

Shall I tell you what we do ? 

You breathe the air, little Nell. 

You could not live without the pure air. 

We breathe, too. 

We take in air for the plant. 

Then the plant grows strong. 

We need the sweet air. 

The rain helps us. 

The sun helps us. 

We need the rain and sun. 

The soil feeds us. 

We need the good soil. 

Are we not happy leaves ? 



130 MANUAL OF READING. 

See how we point to the ground. 

Would you like to know why ? 

Do you see these little grooves ? 

Our veins make these grooves. 

When it rains, the water runs down them. 

I can hear them say, " Thank you, dear leaves." 

They do not get enough water that way. 

I will tell you how they get more. 

We send water in another way. 

Our stem helps us do it. 

It has a little groove in it. 

What do you think the little groove is for ? 

The water runs down the little groove. 

Then it runs down the plant stem. 

It runs to the ground. 

Then the little roots have more water. 

We like to help the roots under the ground. 

We like to help the dear little buds too. 

VII. WHAT THE LITTLE BUD SAID. 

Do you see me too, Nell ? 
I am a little baby bud. 
The leaf takes care of me. 
The leaf keeps me dry and warm at night. 
In the daytime it lets the sunshine kiss me. 
Do you see my little stem ? 
Are you ever hungry, Nell ? 
I am hungry now. 

The juice that runs through the stems brings me 
food. 



APPENDIX I. 131 

Do you know where the juice comes from ? 

It comes from the roots and leaves. 

Don't you think that every one is good to me ? 

Do you see my green coat ? 

It looks like two leaves folded together. 

What do you think it will be ? 

It will be another leaf. 

See my two sisters. 

They are older than I. 

Are they not pretty ? 

Their coats are in two parts. 

You can see their white dresses under their green 

coats. 
They will be flowers some day. 
I can work for them then. 
I have many friends. 
Can you tell me their names ? 

VIII. NELL'S STORY. 

I saw my bean plant to-day. 

What do you think I found ? 

I found a lovely white flower ! 

Last night there was only a flower bud. 

To-day there is this lovely flower. 

I think the warm sun opened it. 

The whole plant is like new. 

I think it is happy over the flower. 

The flower is the crown of the plant. 

I could smell the sweet flower. 

Will it have work to do ? 

I must watch and see. 



132 MANUAL OF READING. 

IX. WHAT THE FLOWER SAID. 

Good morning, Nell, 

Have you come to see me ? 

Here I am under the green leaves. 

The green leaves hide me. 

Do you know me ? 

I have grown since you saw me. 

Then I was a baby bud. 

Now I am a flower. 

Do you like my white dress ? 

Is it not pretty ? 

Do you see my little sisters ? 

They have on white dresses, too. 

We live together on a long stem. 

We are happy together. 

We have many visitors. 

The bees visit us. 

The butterflies visit us. 

Little boys and girls visit us, too. 

We have work to do, Nell. 

We help to make the world beautiful. 

We give food to the bees. 

The butterflies like to come to us. 

Little boys and girls love to look at us. 

We make them happy. 

We do all this. 

We do more work yet. 

That work is a secret now. 

Watch us for a few days, dear Nell. 

Then you will see something wonderful. 

Then you will know our beautiful secret. 



APPENDIX I. 133 

How pretty you are, dear Flower. 

I like to look at you. 

You make me happy. 

You are very small. 

You look like a tiny butterfly. 

Your dress is soft and white. 

You make the whole bean plant look beautiful. 

How the plant must love you ! 

I will take care of you. 

I will watch you every day. 

I shall try to find out your wonderful secret. 

X. THE BEAN PLANT' S FRIENDS. 

Good morning, Sun. 

I see you are looking at me. 

I love you, Sun. 

You are so good to me ! 

You keep me warm and make me grow. 

I shall look at you all day long. 

You are so bright ! 

Are you here, too, Nell? 

I did not see you. 

I was talking with the sun. 

Do you see him, Nell ? 

He loves me, Nell, and he loves you, too. 

I like you, Nell, for you bring me water. 

You and the sun are my friends. 

O, how it rains ! 

You are good to me, Rain. 

Good-by, dear Sun. 

I cannot see you now. 

I like you, Rain. 



134 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

You make me grow and you make me happy. 
I have three friends, — the Sun, Nell, and the Rain. 
I like all my friends. 
They are all good to me. 

XI. THE POD'S STORY. 

You all know me. 

I am a pod. 

My work is to care for the baby beans. 

Little Nell says I look like a cradle. 

My baby beans live in this cradle. 

See how happy they look ! 

I am not like most cradles. 

I can rock in the wind. 

I am held in place by a short stem. 

Each baby has a place. 

A few days ago we were green. 

Now we are yellow. 

I saw little Nell pick a pod from this plant. 

You may pick me soon. 

XII. THE BEAN SEED'S STORY. 

Little Nell has picked us. 

We have left our cradle. 

It is brown and dry. 

We are bean seeds now. 

All summer the good bean plant worked for us. 

It worked every day. 

Its stem grew high and strong. 

Its roots grew long. 

Its leaves spread out. 



APPENDIX I. 135 

Its buds grew to be flowers. 

When the flowers were gone, Nell found our 

cradles where the flowers had been. 
The dear bean plant was our mother. 
When we were ripe, Nell picked us. 
She will keep us safe all winter. 
In the spring Nell will plant us. 
Then we shall begin our work. 



REVIEW. 

Who are we ? 

I am brown. 

I have many small threads on me. 

Do you know the name of these threads ? 

I take food from the bean plant. 

The soil and the rain give me food. 

I hold the plant in the ground. 

Then the wind cannot blow it away. 

Do you know my name ? 

I wonder if you know me ! 

I am broad and green. 

I breathe for the bean plant. 

I cover the baby buds at night. 

Then the cold cannot hurt them. 

I bend when it rains. 

Then the rain-drops must fall to the roots. 

I am heart-shaped. 

Who am I? 

I like the sun and the sun likes me. 
I turn to the sun. 



136 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

The bees like me. 

Boys and girls like me, too. 

I am white. 

But I do not wear my white dress long. 

I help the plant to be beautiful. 

I help to make the pod. 

What is my name ? 

I am long and slender. 

I am shaped like your pencil. 

I am not strong. 

I cannot stand alone. 

Sometimes I climb up a stick. 

Sometimes a string helps me to climb. 

I have work to do. 

Nell has work, too. 

My work is to hold the leaves up. 

I hold the flowers up, too. 

I carry up food to the leaves and flowers. 

Do you know me ? 

I am a little green house. 

I am shaped like a boat. 

I take care of the bean babies. 

I keep the rain out. 

I keep the babies snug and warm. 

When they have grown, I open my doors. 

Then little Nell takes them out. 

Sometimes the wind blows them out. 

Sometimes I snap and throw them out 

Then my work is done. 

Have you ever seen me ? 



APPENDIX I. 137 

I am round and smooth and white. 

Within my coat are two cotyledons. 

Between my cotyledons is a baby plant. 

The bean plant worked for us all summer. 

The winter is cold. 

I must wait for spring. 

In the spring I shall be put in the warm 

earth. 
Then the baby plant between my cotyledons 

will grow. 
Who am I ? 

THE LITTLE PLANT. 

In the heart of a seed, 

Buried deep, so deep, 
A dear little plant 

Lay fast asleep. 

" Wake," said the sunshine, 

"And creep to the light; " 
" Wake," said the voice 
Of rain-drops bright. 

The little plant heard, 

And it rose to see 
What the wonderful 
Outside world might be. 
(Kate Louise Brown, in the " Child's World.") 

By permission. 



APPENDIX II. 

" Such fairy tales show in intelligible form the eter- 
nal battle which is the inheritance of humanity — the 
battle between good and evil; and they plant in the 
young child-heart the beautiful faith that good is cer- 
tainly stronger than evil ; that he who holds fast to the 
good need not fear evil. Now the child looks with glad 
hope into the future of his boundless, shining life and 
thinks, ' When I am large I will do as the good fairy 
does.' " — Herder. 

THE SWEET BROTH. 
Translated from the German of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. 

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was very 
poor and who lived all alone with her mother, and one 
day she had nothing to eat. 

So she went out into the woods, and there an old 
woman met her who knew all her troubles and gave her 
a little cup. The old woman said, " You must say to 
it, ' Little cup, boil,' and it will cook good sweet broth ; 
and when you say, ' Little cup, stop,' it will stop cook- 
ing." The little girl brought the cup home to her 
mother, and they were not hungry or poor any more; 
and they ate the sweet broth as often as they wished. 

One time when the little girl had gone away, the 
mother said, " Little cup, cook," and it boiled ; and she 

138 



APPENDIX II. 139 

ate all she wanted. Then she wanted the cup to stop 
cooking, but she did not know the word, so it boiled and 
boiled until the broth ran out over the top ; and it 
boiled and boiled the kitchen and house full. 

And it boiled and boiled the second house and street 
full, as if it would feed the whole world. The people 
did not know what to do. At last, when only one house 
remained, the little girl came, and only said, " Little 
cup, stop," and it stopped boiling. But people who 
wished to come into the house had to eat their way in. 

What is the central thought of the above ? Why did 
trouble arise from the possession of the fairy's gift ? 
How should fairy gifts (good gifts) be treated ? 
How find a day-by-day application of this truth ? 
Try to adapt this for the reading lesson. 

THE STAR DOLLARS. 

Once upon a time there was a little girl whose father 
and mother were dead, and she was so poor that she had 
no little chamber to live in and no little bed to sleep in, 
and at last nothing at all but the clothes on her body 
and a little piece of bread in her hand. 

But she was good, and because she was forgotten by 
the world she went, trusting in the dear God, out into 
the field. There she met an old man who said, " Oh, 
give me something to eat, I am so hungry ! " She 
reached him the whole piece of bread and said, " God 
bless thee," and went farther. 

There came a child that cried and said, " My head is 
so cold, give me something to cover it with." 



140 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

Then the little girl took her cap and gave him. She 
went on a little farther, when another little child came ; 
it had no little dress on and was freezing, and still far- 
ther another begged for her little coat, and to both of 
them she gave. 

At last she came to a wood. It had grown dark, and 
one came and begged for her little slip. And the trust- 
ing child thought, " It is a dark night, no one sees me, 
I can give away my little slip ; and she drew it off and 
gave it away, too, and as she stood there and had no 
more, there fell all at once stars from heaven ; they 
were hard, bright dollars. She had on a new dress of 
finest linen. Then she gathered up the dollars and was 
rich for her life. 

How can this story lead the child to an appreciation 
of his home and the service of his father and mother? 
Children love this story — why ? 
What is the central truth? 
Why is it both ethical and religious ? 

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 

Note. — The author has introduced this literal translation of Little 
Red Riding Hood here because, as it frequently appears in children's 
books, it is quite shorn of its ethical content. 

Once upon a time there was a dear little girl whom 
everybody loved, but no one loved her so much as her 
grandmother, who wanted to give her everything. Once 
she gave her a little red hood made of satin, and be- 
cause she looked so well in it, and would wear nothing 
else, she was called " Little Red Riding Hood." 

One day her mother said to her : " Come, Little Red 



APPENDIX II. 141 

Riding Hood, here are a piece of cake and a bottle of 
wine, carry them to grandmamma, she is sick and weak, 
they will do her good. Run away before it gets warm. 
Go like a pretty, good little girl, and be sure to keep to 
the path ; for if you leave it you will break the glass, and 
grandmother will have nothing. When you go into her 
room do not forget to say 4 Good morning,' and do not 
look around into all the corners."— - " I will do it all 
nicely," said Little Red Riding Hood, giving her mother 
her hand. 

The grandmother lived out in the wood a mile from 
the village. As Little Red Riding Hood came to the 
wood the Wolf met her, but Little Red Riding Hood 
did not know what a wicked beast he was, and was not 
afraid of him. "Good morning, Little Red Riding 
Hood," said he. — " My best thanks, Wolf." — " Where 
are you going so early, Little Red Riding Hood ? "—"To 
grandmother's." — " What are you carrying under your 
apron?" — "Cake and wine. Yesterday we baked, so 
we can send something to my poor, sick grandmother. 
It will do her good and make her strong." 

"Little Red Riding Hood, where does your grand- 
mother live ? " — " A half mile farther, under three big 
oak trees, there stands her house; below is the nut 
hedge," said Little Red Riding Hood. The Wolf 
thought to himself, " That young, tender thing is a 
fat bit and will taste better than the old one. I must 
be cunning to catch both." 

He went for a little while beside Red Riding Hood. 
Then he said : " Little Red Riding Hood, see the beau- 
tiful flowers all around us ; why do you not look at 
them ? I believe you never hear how sweetly the little 



142 MANUAL OF READING. 

birds sing. You go along just as though you were 
going to school, and it is so nice out there in the 
wood." 

Little Red Riding Hood lifted her eyes, and when she 
saw how the sunbeams danced through the wood that 
were full of beautiful flowers, she thought : " If I could 
only take grandmamma a fresh bouquet, it would make 
her so glad. It is so early that I shall be sure to be 
there in time." Then she went out of the path, into 
the wood, and began to look for flowers. And when 
she had picked one she always thought that beyond it 
was a prettier one and ran after it, and so she got 
farther and farther into the wood. 

But the Wolf went straight on to the house of the 
grandmother and knocked on the door. " Who is 
there ? " — " Little Red Riding Hood, who brings you cake 
and wine. Open the door." — " Only press on the latch," 
the grandmother called, " I am so weak that I cannot 
get up." The Wolf pressed on the latch and the door 
flew open, and he went without speaking straight to 
the bed of the grandmother and swallowed her. Then 
he put on her clothes, set her cap on his head, lay down 
in the bed, and pulled the curtains together. 

Now Little Red Riding Hood was running about after 
flowers, and when she had found all she could carry, she 
thought of her grandmother and went back to the path. 
She was surprised that the door stood open ; and when 
she went into the room all looked so strange that she 
thought, " O dear God, I feel so anxious and afraid 
to-day, and I always used to be so glad to come to 
grandmother's." She called, " Good morning," but no 
answer came. Then she went to the bed and pulled the 



APPENDIX II. 143 

curtains back. There lay the grandmother with her cap 
down over her face, looking so strange ! 

" Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have ! " — "That 
is so I can hear you better." — " Oh, grandmother, what 
big eyes you have ! " — " That is so I can see you better." 
— "Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have!" — 
"That is so I can catch you better." — "But, grand- 
mother, what a horrible great mouth you have!" — 
" That is so I can eat you better." Just as he said this 
the Wolf sprang out of bed and swallowed poor Little 
Red Riding Hood. 

Now the Wolf felt satisfied, so he laid himself in bed 
again and began to snore very loud. But just then a 
hunter passed by the house. He thought : " How the 
old lady snores ! I must see if something is the 
matter." He went into the house, and when he came 
to the bed he saw that the Wolf lay in it. "You 
here, you old sinner ! " said he. " I have looked for 
you a long while." He was going to shoot when he 
thought that perhaps the Wolf had swallowed the 
grandmother. So he took the shears and began to cut 
the sleeping Wolf open. He had only made a few cuts 
when a little red hood came in sight, and only a few 
more and a little girl sprang out and cried : " Oh, how 
frightened I was ! It was so dark in there." And then 
the old grandmother came out alive and could hardly 
breathe. But Little Red Riding Hood brought big 
stones to fill up the Wolf's body. When he woke up, 
he was going to spring away, but the stones were so 
heavy that he sank back and fell dead. 

Then all three were happy. The hunter took off the 
Wolf's skin and went home with it. The grandmother 



144 MANUAL OF READING. 

ate the cake and drank the wine and grew strong. But 
Little Red Riding Hood said, " As long as I live, I will 
never go out of the path again when my mother tells 
me not to." 

What is the ethical teaching of this fairy tale ? 

What does the Wolf symbolize ? 

Why is such teaching of special worth to children ? 

Determine the unities or natural divisions in this 
story. 

What are the true apperceiving ideas for the interpre- 
tation of the story ? 

What would be the danger in presenting this to 
children ? 

How could it be presented to avoid such danger? 

How secure effective application without seeming to 
moralize. 

THE ANXIOUS LEAF. 

Once upon a time a little leaf was heard to sigh and 
cry, as leaves often do when a gentle wind is about. 
And the twig said, " What is the matter, little leaf ? " 
and the leaf said, " The wind just told me that one day 
it would pull me off and throw me down on the ground 
to die." 

The twig told it to the branch on which it grew, and 
the branch told it to the tree. And when the tree heard 
it, it rustled all over, and sent back word to the leaf, 
"Do not be afraid ; hold on tightly, and you shall not 
go until you want to." 

And so the leaf stopped sighing, but went on nestling 
and singing. Every time the tree shook itself and 



APPENDIX II. 145 

stirred up all its leaves, the branches shook themselves, 
and the little twig shook itself, and the little leaf danced 
up and down merrily, as if nothing could pull it off. 
And so it grew all summer long until October. 

And when the bright days of autumn came, the little 
leaf saw all the leaves around becoming very beautiful. 
Some were yellow and some were scarlet, and some were 
striped with both colors. 

Then it asked the tree what it meant. And the tree 
said, "All these leaves are getting ready to fly away, 
and they have put on their beautiful colors because of 

joy-" 

Then the little leaf began to want to go too, and grew 
very beautiful in thinking of it ; and when it was very 
gay in color, it saw that the branches of the tree had no 
color in them, and so the leaf said, " Oh, branches ! why 
are you lead color and we golden ? " 

" We must keep on our work clothes, for our task is 
not done ; but your clothes are for the holiday, because 
your work is finished." 

Just then a little puff of wind came, and the leaf let 

go without thinking of it, and the wind took it up and 

turned it over and over, and whirled it like a spark of 

fire in the air, and then it fell gently down under the 

edge of the fence among hundreds of leaves, and fell 

into a dream and never waked up to tell what it dreamt 

about. 

(From " Classic Stories for the Little Ones.") 

By permission. 

What time in the year would you choose for present- 
ing the above ? 

What is the central truth ? 



146 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

Find the unities. 

How help the child to get this truth for his own life ? 
Determine on the few important questions you would 
ask in teaching the above. 

CLYTIE, THE SUNFLOWER. 

Once upon a time there was a nymph named Clytie, 
who lived in a cave at the bottom of the sea. She loved 
her sea home, although it was dim and dark. 

One day Clytie went to sleep in a great shell. It 
drifted through the water, and at last the big waves 
washed it ashore. Clytie awoke and stepped on the 
land. She had never seen land before ; all was new and 
wonderful. At first she could hardly see because of the 
great brightness. What made it so bright? 

Clytie looked up to the blue sky above her and saw 
the sun. Then she knew why the earth was so different 
from the dark sea. Her heart was filled with love for 
the great sun who made everything so bright and beau- 
tiful. Day by day she watched him, and she wished to 
be like him. 

Now little Clytie, although she did not know it, was 
becoming more like the sun every day. At last her 
little feet became rooted in the earth where she had 
stood so long ; her pretty green dress grew into a long 
stem with leaves upon it; her beautiful hair became 
bright golden petals. Little Clytie was a beautiful sun- 
flower. 

Select places where this story could be expanded in 
presenting it to the class. 

Why does Clytie become so transformed ? 



APPENDIX II. 147 

What does the sun symbolize here ? 
What should the story mean to the child ? 

RAGGYLUG. 

Long ago the Roses used to grow on bushes that had 
no thorns. But the Squirrels and Mice used to climb 
after them, the Cattle used to knock them off with their 
horns, the 'Possum would twitch them off with his long 
tail, and the Deer, with his sharp hoofs, would break 
them down. So the Brier bush armed itself with spikes 
to protect its roses and declared eternal war on all 
creatures that climbed trees or had horns, or hoofs, 
or long tails. This left the Brier bush at peace with 
none but Molly Cottontail, who could not climb, was 
hornless, hoofless, and had scarcely any tail at all. 

In truth, the Cottontail had never harmed a Brier 
rose, and having now so many enemies, the Rose took 
the Rabbit into special friendship, and when dangers 
are threatening poor Bunny, he flies to the nearest 
Brier bush, certain that it is ready with a million keen 
and poisoned daggers to defend him. 

(From " Wild Animals I Have Known," by Ernest Seton- 
Thompson.) By permission. 

What elements in this story are educative ? 
What apperceiving ideas would a class need to appre- 
ciate it? 

What great social truths are suggested ? 



148 MANUAL OF READING. 

SUPPOSED SPEECH OE JOHN ADAMS. 
By Daniel Webster. 

John Adams (1735-1826), the second President of 
the United States, was one of the heroes of the War of 
the Revolution, and helped to make the Declaration 
of Independence. His name was prominent among 
the signers of that noble document. 

Daniel Webster, who was as great a patriot as Adams, 
many years after in one of his famous speeches imagined 
John Adams making an address before the Convention 
which framed the Declaration of Independence. The 
following is this supposed speech : — 

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give 
my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, 
that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. 
But there's a divinity that shapes our ends. The injus- 
tice of England has driven us to arms ; and, blinded to 
her own interest for our good, she has obstinately per- 
sisted till independence is now within our grasp. We 
have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, 
should we defer the Declaration ? Is any man so weak 
as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which 
shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, 
or safety to his own life or his own honor? Are not 
you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our venerable 
colleague near you, are you not both already the pro- 
scribed and predestined objects of punishment and ven- 
geance ? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what 
are you, what can you be, while the power of England 
remains, but outlaws ? 



APPENDIX II. 149 

If we postpone independence, do we mean to cany- 
on or give up the war ? Do we mean to submit to the 
measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all ? Do 
we mean to submit and consent that we shall be ground 
to powder, and our country and its rights trodden in 
the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We 
never shall submit. Do we intend to violate the most 
solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plight- 
ing before God of our sacred honor to Washington, 
when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as 
well as the political hazards of the times, we promised 
to adhere to him in every extremity with our fortunes 
and our lives ? I know there is not a man here who 
would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over 
the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle 
of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, 
having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you 
that George Washington be appointed commander of 
the forces raised, or to be raised, for the defence of 
American liberty, may my right hand forget her cun- 
ning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him. 

The war, then, must go on. We must fight it 
through. And if the war must go on, why put off 
longer the Declaration of Independence ? That measure 
will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. 
The nations will then treat with us, which they never 
can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects, in 
arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that Eng- 
land herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the 
footing of independence than consent, by repealing her 
acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct toward 



150 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

us has been a course of injustice and oppression. Her 
pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course 
of things which now predestinates our independence 
than by yielding the point in controversy with her 
rebellious subjects. The former she would regard as 
the result of fortune ; the latter she would feel as her 
own deep disgrace. Why, then, sir, do we not change 
this from a civil to a national war! And since we 
must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state 
to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the 
victory ? 

If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall 
not fail. The cause will raise up armies ; the cause 
will create navies. The people, — the people, if we 
are true to them, will carry themselves and will carry 
us gloriously through this struggle. I care not how 
fickle other people have been found. I know the 
people of these colonies, and I know that resistance to 
British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts 
and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has 
expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the 
lead. Sir, the Declaration of Independence will inspire 
the people with increased courage. Instead of a long 
and bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for 
redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held 
under a British king, set before them the glorious object 
of entire independence, and it will breathe into them 
anew the spirit of life. 

Read this Declaration at the head of the army; 
every sword will be drawn and the solemn vow uttered, 
to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish 
it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the 



APPENDIX II. 151 

love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved 
to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public 
halls ; proclaim it there ; let them see it, who saw their 
brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill 
and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the 
very walls will cry out in its support. 

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see 
— I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, 
indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see the time 
that this Declaration shall be made good. We may die : 
die colonists ; die slaves ; die, it may be ignominiously 
and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the 
pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the 
poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at 
the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when the hour 
may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at 
least the hope of a country, and that a free country. 

But whatever may be our fate, be assured — be assured 
that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, 
and it may cost blood ; but it will stand, and it will 
richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom 
of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as 
the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an 
immortal day. When we are in our graves, our chil- 
dren will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanks- 
giving, with festivity, with bonfires and illuminations. 
On its annual return they will shed tears, — copious, 
gushing tears ; not of subjection and slavery, not of 
agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and 

of joy- 
Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My 
judgment approves the measure, and my whole heart is 



152 MANUAL OF HEADING. 

in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I 
hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it ; 
and I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or 
perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living senti- 
ment, and by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying 
sentiment, Independence now and independence for- 
ever. 

{From " Stepping Stones to Literature.") 

By permission. 

In what grade would you introduce this speech ? 

In relation to what other material? 

What related ideas would you recall in order to secure 
an intelligent interpretation of the whole ? 

How help your class to project themselves into the 
selection ? 

How would you secure good expressive or oral reading 
of the speech ? 



APPENDIX III. 

HERVfe KIEL. 
By Robert Browning. 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two, 

Did the English fight the French, — woe to France ! 

And the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the 
blue, 

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue, 

Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Ranee, 

With the English fleet in view. 

' Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full 
chase, 

First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damfreville ; 

Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty -two good ships in all ; 
And they signalled to the place, 
" Help the winners of race ! 

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick, — or, 

quicker still, 
Here's the English can and will ! " 

153 



154 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk, and leaped 

on board ; 
"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to 

pass ? " laughed they ; 
"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passages 

scarred and scored, 
Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve-and-eighty 

guns, 
Think to make the river mouth by the single narrow 

way, 
Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty 

tons, 

And with flow of full beside ? 
Now 'tis slackest of ebb tide 

Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
While rock stands, or water runs, 

Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 

Then was called a council straight ; 
Brief and bitter the debate. 

" Here's the English at our heels ; would you have them 

take in tow 
All that's left us of the fleet, linked together, stern and 

bow; 

For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 
Better run the ships aground ! " 
(Ended Damfreville his speech) 
" Not a minute more to wait ! 
Let the captains, all and each, 



APPENDIX III. 155 

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the 
beach ! 

France must undergo her fate." 

" Give the word ! " but no such word 

Was ever spoke or heard ; 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck, amid all 

these — 
A captain ? a lieutenant ? a mate ? — first, second, third? 

No such man of mark and meet 
With his betters to compete ! 

But a simple Breton sailor, pressed by Tourville for the 

fleet, 
A poor coasting pilot, he, — Herve Riel, the Croisickese. 

And, " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cried 

Herv^ Riel. 
" Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, fools, 

or rogues ? 
Talk to me of rocks and shoals? — me, who took the 

soundings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, 
'Twixt the offing here and Grdve, where the river 

disembogues ? 
Are you bought by English gold ? Is it love the lying's 

for? 

" Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay, 



156 MANUAL OF READING. 

Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet, and ruin France ? That were worse than 

fifty Hogues ! 
Sirs, then know I speak the truth ! Sirs, believe me, 

there's a way I 

" Only let me lead the line, 
Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this Formidable clear, 
Make the others follow mine ; 

And I lead them most and least, by a passage I know 
well, 

Right to Solidor, past Gr£ve, 

And there lay them safe and sound ; 

And if one ship misbehave, — 

Keel so much as grate the ground, — 

Why, I've nothing but my life ; here's my head ! " 
cries Herv^ Riel. 

Not a minute more to wait. 

" Steer us in, then, small and great ! 

Take the helm ; lead the line ; save the squadron ! " 
cried its chief. 

" Captains, give the sailor place ! " 

He is Admiral, in brief. 

Still the north wind, by God's grace, 

See the noble fellow's face 

As the big ship, with a bound, 

Clears the entry like a hound, 



APPENDIX III. 157 

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide 
sea's profound ! 

See ! safe through shoal and rock, 
How they follow in a flock. 

Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the 
ground, 

Not a spar that comes to grief ; 

The peril, see, is past, 

All are harbored to the last ; 

And just as Herve* Rielhalloes, "Anchor ! " sure's fate, 
Up the English come, — too late. 

So the storm subsides to calm ; 
They see the green trees wave 
On the heights o'erlooking Greve ; 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
" Just our rapture to enhance, 

Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth and glare askance 

As they cannonade away! 

'Neath the rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the 
Ranee ! " 

How hope succeeds despair on each captain's counte- 
nance ! 

Out burst all with one accord, 
"This is Paradise for Hell! 
Let France, let France's king 
Thank the man who did the thing ! " 



158 MANUAL OF READING. 

What a shout, and all one word, 

"HerveRiel!" 
As he stepped in front once more, 
Not a symptom of surprise 
In the frank blue Breton eyes — 
Just the same man as before. 

Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 
I must speak out at the end, 

Though I find that speaking hard : 
Praise is deeper than the lips ; 
You have saved the King his ships ; 

You must name your own reward. 
Faith, our sun was near eclipsed ! 
Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 

Ask to heart's content, and have ! or my name's not 
Damfreville ! " 

Then a beam of fun outbroke 
On the bearded mouth that spoke, 
As the honest heart laughed through 
Those frank eyes of Breton blue ; 
" Since I needs must say my say, 
Since on board the duty's done, 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but 
a run ? 

Since 'tis ask and have I may ; 
Since the others go ashore, — 
Come ! A good whole holiday ! 



APPENDIX III. 159 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 

Aurore ! " 
That he asked, and that he got, — nothing more. 

Name and deed alike are lost ; 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 

Not a head in white and black 
On a single fishing smack 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence England 
bore the bell. 

Go to Paris ; rank on rank 
Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank ; 

You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve* Riel. 

So, for better and for worse, 
Herve Riel, accept my verse ! 

In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife, the 
Belle Aurore ! 

By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
(For the analysis of this poem, see Chapter XIII.) 
Make a list of important patriotic poems ; try to give 
the central thought of each a clearly individual putting. 
Why is patriotism a moral quality ? 
Try to determine when it begins naturally to develop 
in the life of a child. 



APPENDIX IV. 

STUDY OF MACBETH. 
Made by the Class in Ethics in the Oswego Normal School. 

The central thought of play : The deed returns upon 
the doer. 

Note. — The whole action centres in the forces which lead up to 
the deed and the consequences that result from it. 

Act I. Conditions that lead up to the deed. 

Scene I. The foreshadowing of the deed. 
Evil forces are represented as astir, on tiptoe, expect- 
ant. " There to meet with Macbeth." 

Note. — The witches seem to stand as types of evil forces of a 
purely spiritual sort that " attend on mortal thought." They are 
the only supersensible powers to which Macbeth turns for aid. 

Scene II. Introduction to human forces that are at 
work. (This scene gives the objective view as the first 
scene gives a view of the supersensible.) 

Trend of forces in this scene is toward the stimulation 
of ambitious desires. 

Scene III. The suggestion leading to the deed. 

Macbeth's readiness for the suggestion speaks of his 
familiarity in desire with that which is suggested. " If 
chance will have me king, why chance may crown me." 

160 



APPENDIX IV. 161 

Scene IV. Reenforcement of suggestion by fresh in- 
centive. 

" That is a step 

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, 

For in my way it lies." 

" Let not light see my black and deep desires." 

Scene V. Foreshadowing of opportunity for the crime. 
Attention of both actors turns to this opportunity. 

Note. — A second actor enters in the form of Lady Macbeth, who 
represents the element of will, as Macbeth represents the element 
of desire. 

Scene VI. Brings all the actors together. 

Scene VII. The choice. 
Note Macbeth's deliberation. 

Note the character of Macbeth and of Lady Macbeth 
as exhibited here. 

Act II. The deed. 

Scene I. Macbeth's vision. 

Note. — Macbeth shows in this scene that he has already entered 
into the world of " wicked dreams," opened to him by his choice. 

" Now o'er the one half world 

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 

The curtain'd sleep." 

Scene II. The crime. 

The real sentence of' the crime, i.e, the subjective 



162 MANUAL OF READING. 

results, begin to appear at once. " Sleep no more." 
Remorse is sleepless. 

" Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou 
couldst ! " 

" To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself." 

Scene III. The discovery of the deed. 

" To show an unfelt sorrow is an office 
Which the false man does easily." 

Scene IV. Macbeth made King. The immediate ob- 
jective result of the deed. 

" But this sore night 

Hath trifled former knowings." 

Compare the unrest of nature represented here with 
that in " Julius Caesar," Act I., Scene III. 

Act III. The exactions of the deed. 

" Blood will have blood." 

" Strange things I have to hand." 

" We are yet but young in deed." 

Scene I. A second crime planned for safety. 
" But to be safely thus." 

Note the appearance of new elements of remorse in 
this scene : sense of insecurity, rebuke of the good, 
fear of the good, deep discontent, bitterness of the 
coveted fruit when tasted. 

Scene II. Lady Macbeth, the tacit accomplice in a 
second crime. 



APPENDIX IV. 163 

" Things bad begun make strong themselves 
by ill." 

Note additional features of remorse : loneliness, 
brooding, sleep without rest, etc. 

Scene III. The second crime. 

Scene IV. The second sentence. 

Scene V. (1) Macbeth fully under Hecate's control. 
(2) More potent forces of evil enter the scene and 
predict deeper disaster. 

Scene VI. Disintegrating influence of the crime work- 
ing outward into the country at large. Signs of general 
disaffection. 

Act IV. The widespread disintegrating power of the 
deed. 

Scene I. Macbeth's deliberate alliance with the powers 
of evil. 

" From this moment 

The very firstlings of my heart shall be 

The firstlings of my hand." 

Scene II. The third crime. The harmless are struck. 

Scene III. Disruption of the state. The universal 
terror. War foreshadowed. 

(Compare with Anthony's speech over the body of 
Csesar, " Julius Caesar," Act III., Scene I.) 

Act V. The full return of the deed upon the doers. 



164 MANUAL OF BEADING 

Scene I. The remorse of Lady Macbeth. 

" All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten 
this little hand." 

Scene II. Union of the wronged country for the 
restoration of civil and social order. 

Scene III. Macbeth forsaken. The loneliness of 
crime. 

" 1 have lived long enough,'' etc. 

Scene IV. Union of opposing forces. 

Scene V. Death of Lady Macbeth. 

" I have supp'd full with horrors." 

(See Bume-Jones's picture of the death of 
Lady Macbeth.) 

Scene VI. Birnam before Dunsinane. 

Scene VII. The fall of the castle. 

" Tyrant show thy face ! " 

Scene VIII. Death of Macbeth. 

1. How did the Witches' prophecy serve to excite 

Macbeth to the deed ? 

2. How did the new honors bestowed upon Macbeth 

serve to excite him to the deed ? 

3. Where do you see a conflict of desires in Macbeth ? 

4. Where does Lady Macbeth see the opportunity to 

murder Duncan ? 






APPENDIX IV. 165 

When did she determine to seize this opportunity? 

5. Where do you find anything approaching delibera- 

tion on the part of Lady Macbeth ? 

6. Why is this not true deliberation ? 

7. When is the deed virtually settled on ? 
Why? 

8. What is the influence of these two minds on each 

other ? 

9. Had Macbeth been left alone, what would have 

been his probable course in the murder of 
Duncan ? 

10. Had Lady Macbeth been left alone, how would she 

probably have received Duncan ? 

11. When and how do the effects of deliberate crime 

begin to be felt ? 

12. What three important traits of remorse are shown 

in Act II., Scene II. ? 

13. Distinguish between regret and repentance. 
Which is allied to remorse ? 

14. What new elements of remorse are added in Scene 

I., Act III. 

15. What change in the will of Macbeth is shown in 

this scene ? 

16. What added features of remorse appear in Scene 

II., Act II.? 

17. What is the influence of Lady Macbeth's tacit con- 

sent to the murder of Banquo on Macbeth? 

18. Account for the ghost companion that appears in 

Scene IV., Act III. 

19. How do you account for the marked change in 

Lady Macbeth at this time ? 

20. What immediate effect of the second crime is 



166 MANUAL OF BEADING. 

shown in Macbeth in the last speeches of this 
scene? 

21. Compare the motives that led up to the two crimes. 

22. How account for the feeling expressed in the last 

words in this scene, " We are but young in 
deed"? 

23. Compare this with " Julius Caesar." 

24. Account for the appearance of Hecate in Scene V., 

Act III. 

25. Why should Shakespeare introduce war as one of 

the results of this crime ? 

26. What passage in Act I., Scene IV., shows Macbeth's 

attitude toward society and proves him the anti- 
social being ? 

27. What relation do you find between the prophecy 

made by the first apparition and Macbeth's own 
thought ? 

28. What is the immediate influence of these prophecies 

on Macbeth ? Quote passages to prove. 

29. What motive moves him to this third and most 

dreadful deed? 

30. Why does Scene II., Act IV., represent a deeper 

tragedy than any that has preceded ? 

31. Why does it make a stronger appeal to the sym- 

pathies of the reader? 

32. Quote passages in this scene that show that Mac- 

beth's sins had loosened social bonds in his 
kingdom. 

33. In what way does Scene II., Act IV., show the 

strength and importance of civil bonds ? 

34. Quote passages to show that both Malcolm and 

Macduff possess patriotism. 



APPENDIX IV. 167 

35. Analyze their picture of Macbeth. 

36. What would have been the result if Macbeth had 

possessed true patriotism ? 

37. On what had the mind of Lady Macbeth dwelt 

most? Scene I., Act V. 

38. Distinguish between a sense of guilt and sorrow 

for guilt. Which does Lady Macbeth show? 

39. What is there here to suggest the cause of her 

death ? 

40. What changes does Scene II. show in the mind of 

Macbeth ? 

41. Account for brutality that appears in this scene ; 

for the want of continuity in thought and act. 

42. What are the effects of remorse as judged from 

this scene ? 

43. Compare the sorrow of Macbeth in Scene V. with 

that of Macduff. 

44. What is Macbeth's philosophy of life as shown in 

this scene? 

45. Why does Macbeth leave his castle when his mili- 

tary strength bids him stay there ? 

46. What is Macbeth's view of his own course at last? 

47. What is his view of the Witches ? 

48. Trace the stages in the moral decline of Macbeth. 
What are the causes at each step? How does 

this decline express itself? 



Supplementary Reading 

A Classified List for all Grades. 



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Badlam's Primer .... 
Fuller's Illustrated Primer 
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Heart of Oak Readers, Book I 
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Heart of Oak Readers, Book I 
Snedden's Docas, the Indian Boy 
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature, Readers No. i 
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Pratt's America's Story, Beginner's Book 
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 2 
Miller's My Saturday Bird Class . 
Firth's Stories of Old Greece 
Bass's Stories of Animal life 
Spear's Leaves and Flowers 
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Brown's Alice and Tom 
GrinnelFs Our Feathered Friends 
Heart of Oak Readers, Book III . 
Pratt's America's Story — Discoverers and Explorers 
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 3 
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Grinnell's Our Feathered Friends 

Heart of Oak Readers, Book III . 

Pratt's America's Story — The Earlier Colonies . 

Kupfer's Stories of Long Ago 
GRADE VI. Starr's Strange Peoples . 

Bull's Fridtjof Nansen .... 

Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV . 

Pratt's America's Story — The Colonial Period . 

Dole's The Young Citizen 
GRADE VII. Starr's American Indians 

Penniman's School Poetry Book . 

Pratt's America's Story — The Revolution and the Republic 

Eckstorm's The Bird Book 

Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV . 

Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 4 
GRADES VIII and IX. Heart of Oak Readers, Book V 

Heart of Oak Readers, Book VI . 

Dole's The American Citizen 

Shaler's First Book in Geology (boards) 

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield . 

Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley . 



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